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DISCOURSE 

ON 

THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 

PHYSIOLOGICALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM 

MATERIALISM, 



INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE INST1TU 1 B3 OF 

MEDICINE AND MATERIA MEDICA, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 

Delivered on the Evening of Nov. 2, 1848, 

BY MARTYN PAINE, A.M., M. D., 

Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Materia Medica in the University of New York 

Member ot the Royal Verein fur Heilkunde in Preussen ; of the Medical 

Society of Leipsic; of the Montreal Natural History Society, 

and other Learned Associations. 



" The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who 
gave it."— Eccl. xii. 7. 

" A chemist will reduce Divinity to the maxims of his laboratory, explain morality by sal, 
sulphur, and mercury, and allegorise the Scripture itself, and the Sacred mysteries thereof, 
into the philosopher's stone." — Locke, On the Human Understanding. 

" Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish. 1 '— Psalms, 
xl. 20. 



[PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY BY THE MEDICAL CLASS. J 
ENLARGED EDITION. 

NEW YORK: 
REPUBLISHED BY EDWARD H. FLETCHER, 

141 NASSAU STREET. 
1849. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by 

MARTY N PAINE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. 



J. H. Jennings & Co., Printers, 

122 Nassau street. 



THE FOLLOWING ESSAY IS DEDICATED 

To the Author's Brother, 

CHARLES PAINE, A.M., 

LATE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF VERMONT, 

&s a Exfyutz 

* TO HIS VIRTUES, INTELLIGENCE AND ENTERPRISE. 



PREFACE. 



The following Essay was originally designed as a;i 
introductory D'scourse to the Author's Lectures on the 
Institutes of Medicine and Materia Medica, in the Uni- 
versity of the city of New York. 

Although the Discourse was addressed to medical gen- 
tlemen, the Author has been advised that it is equally 
suited to other classes of society, and has been urged to 
supply an opportunity for iis general circulation. Hav- 
ing yielded to this request, he can only hope that neither 
his friends nor himself may be disappointed. But he 
will not suffer this edition to go forth without expressing 
his objection to popularizing works upon medical topics, 
and even upon physiology in its ordinary acceptation. 

In this Essay the Author has had in view not only the 
characteristics of the soul and of the principle of in- 
stinct, in their moral and physiological aspects, but the 
importance of a right appreciation of their attributes in 
the practical pursuits of Hygiene, Pathology, and The- 
rapeutics. He has also been actuated by the belief, that 
no subject can offer greater interest to the whole human 
family; and, from its intricacies and entire want of de- 
monstration at the hands of physiologists, and more es- 



VI PREFACE. 

pecially on account of the prevalence of materialism, 
he has supposed that a service might be rendered to 
every contemplative mind, to the materialist himself, by 
affording reliable evidence of the existence of the soul 
as an independent, self-acting, immortal, and spiritual 
essence. 

" That the intelligence of any being," says D'Alem- 
bert, " should be able to reason, till he loses himself, on 
the existence and nature of objects, though condemned 
to be eternally ignorant of them ; that he should have too 
little sagacity to resolve an infinity of questions, which 
he has yet sagacity enough to make ; that the principle 
within us, which thinks, should ask itself in vain what 
it is that constitutes the thought, and that this thought, 
which sees so many things, so distant, should yet not be 
able to see itself, which is so near ; that self, which it is, 
notwithstanding, always striving to see and to know ; 
these are contradictions, which, even in the very pride 
of our reasoning, cannot fail to surprise and confound 
us." 

But, more than all, the Author has supposed that, if 
the doctrine of materialism can be shown to be errone- 
ous, and a perfect conviction of the existence of the soul 
as an independent, self-acting agent, could be established, 
it would hardly fail to enlarge and strengthen our con- 
ceptions of Creative Power, of our dependence upon 
that Power, and of our moral and religious responsi- 
bilities. Such a conviction, arising from demonstrative 



PREFACE. Vll 

proof, which appeals to the senses as well as the under- 
standing, it appears to the writer, has been wanted by 
the human family, however they may be disposed, in the 
main, to accede to Revelation, or to listen to the natural 
suggestions of reason. If the writer have failed, he will 
enjoy the consciousness of knowing that he will have 
done no harm to morals or Religion, and that the worst 
of the issue will be the trouble that may devolve upon 
others in restoring the subject to its former obscurities 
and consequent tendencies. 

The quotations which the Author has made from 
Scripture are not designed in the light of proof, except- 
ing as they may concur with the demonstration. They 
are, therefore, introduced rather for the purpose of show- 
ing how far our own facts corroborate the Divine Au- 
thority. 

The Author has added a Discourse on the general 
Philosophy of Life, as being, in his opinion, an appro- 
priate companion to the Essay which relates to the Soul 
and Principle of Instinct ; since each of these existences 
" is the compendium of various faculties, most wonder- 
fully compounded and harmonized." It will be found, 
moreover, that the chemical philosophy of organic life 
necessarily involves an equal exclusion of any other in- 
terpretation of the acts of intellection. If a principle of 
life be denied in accounting for the endless and unique 
phenomena which appertain to the functions of the body, 
it is sufficiently apparent, independently of the avow- 



VI11 PREFACE. 

ed doctrines of materialism, that the far more circum- 
scribed phenomena of mind, from their connection with 
the same organization through which the functions of 
life are conducted, must be placed on the same physi- 
cal ground. It would be an useless effort to controvert 
the chemical hypothesis of mind, while life is admitted 
to depend upon chemical processes. The former must 
irresistibly flow from the latter, so far as facts are con- 
cerned in inductive philosophy ; since the phenomena of 
life are more multifarious than those of mind, and are 
equally unique and opposed to the chemical rationale. 

But, in all fairness, it must be said that the doctrine of 
mental secretion is not liable to the same exclusive ma- 
terialism as the chemical hypothesis, where the former 
is founded upon a principle of life acting through the 
medium of organization ; though there are but few of 
this school who allow any other principle of life than 
such as naturally belongs to the elements of matter, but 
which are not manifested while matter exists in an ele- 
mentary state. It is to the few, therefore, to whom the 
present remarks are applicable. So far there is some- 
thing to contradistinguish the organic from the inorganic 
world. The moving power, in this case, is peculiar to 
animated beings ; though the manifestations of mind 
would be on common ground with all the physical pro- 
ducts. So far, therefore, this doctrine is less offensive 
to science than the chemical ; although, as I have en- 
deavored to show, it is abundantly contradicted by facts, 



PREFACE. IX 

while it is equally, as the chemical, armed with the sting 
of annihilation. But the chemical is far in the ascend- 
ant, and will probably soon leave the vital doctrine of 
mental secretion " among the things that were," on ac- 
count of the general acquiescence in the chemical doc- 
trines of life. 

Whoever, therefore, would arrest the progress of men- 
tal materialism, and promote a belief in a future state of 
being, with its attendant .moral influences on mankind 
in their individual and social relations, will not fail to 
consider well the vast corruptions of the chemical phi- 
losophy of life, and how easy as well as a necessary 
consequence it will be to carry the same philosophy to 
all the intellectual and instinctive acts. 

There are many Philosophers who are fully sensible 
that all the phenomena of life are entirely opposed to 
the ph} 7 sieal and chemical interpretations, but are not 
inclined to admit the existence of any principle beyond 
those which appertain to the inorganic kingdom. They 
have, therefore, singularly enough, ascribed all the ac- 
tions and results of life to the direct agency of the Cre- 
ator. This is the most dangerous of all the spurious 
doctrines of life, for it confounds the Author of Nature 
with his own Works, and is equivalent to a denial of 
Creative Power.* 

* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, Index, Art. God and Nature. 
Also, Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 1, p. 46-54. Also, 
Mote at the end of this Essay. 

1* 



X PREFACE. 

In my Essay on Spontaneous Generation, embraced 
in the Medical and Physiological Commentaries, I had 
occasion to refer to the charge of infidelity which has 
been often laid against the Medical Profession. I have 
there, too, as one of that Profession, defended it against 
so great an injustice, and have held responsible the pro- 
per Sources that have given rise to this imputation, and 
have shown, also, that it is greatly due to the chemical 
and physical hypotheses of life. These corruptions, it 
is true, have been creeping fast from the laboratory, not 
only into the walks of medicine, but throughout all the 
highways and byways of society, and mental material- 
ism has been making corresponding strides. They are, 
however, of a common origin, and have been received 
upon trust, — without examination, — without even a ref- 
erence to the graver consequences which respect the 
lofty attributes of the soul and its future destinies. 

I have also said, in connection with this subject, that 
the steps are gradual from the incipient errors in philo- 
sophy to a disbelief in the Mosaic record of Creation, 
(now so greatly turned from its natural import to build 
up systems of spontaneous generation, or to meet cer- 
tain supposed exigencies in Geology,) and that when w T e 
have ultimately reached the brink of the precipice, there 
is but one dreadful plunge, and we are then in the vor- 
tex of atheism. We may begin, as I have said, by a 
simple denial of the living powers of organized beings, 
when it will become, at last, an easy argument upon 



this and analogous premises, that the Almighty had but 
very little, if any agency, in the most sublime part of 
existences. I would desire, however, no greater re- 
straint upon free inquiry than such as is enjoined by 
the intrinsic value of facts ; and I say again, let Philo- 
sophy interrogate Nature to its fullest satiety, under 
the direction of its Heaven-born principles ; but let it 
be consistent, and maintain its dignity. And should it 
sometimes, as it must in its wide range of Nature, come 
in contact with Miracle, that is its limit, contented that 
it begins at the confines of Creation ; yet still may it 
stretch into the regions of Eternity, past and to come ; 
but now it is employed in its nobler work of sacrificing 
its relations to second causes, and in establishing rela- 
tions with the First Cause of All. 



DISCOURSE, 

&C. 



I speak of Man : — a subject not yet exhausted, 
although the perpetual study of himself since the 
day of his creation. Something remains to be 
known of his organization. Bat that part of his 
condition is nearly ascertained ; so far, at least, as 
its knowledge is of any practical interest. The 
absolute functions of his various constituent parts 
are, also, about as well known. But when we 
consider the multifarious and contradictory opin- 
ions as to the principles and laws upon which 
those functions and their results depend, one might 
be almost inclined to imagine that this vast and 
important field is a terra incognita. It is not so, 
however. It is only a collision between truth and 
error. The intellectuality which the subject in- 
volves is the occasion of all the discrepancies of 
opinion ; and he alone will be right who brings to 
the inquiry a sound judgment and a clear dis- 
cernment of the ways of Nature. To such an 



6 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

inquirer the depths of physiology will appear to 
be laid open, and of no very difficult access. But 
the qualifications which I have mentioned are 
indispensable. Those who want them will either 
see in the conflicting doctrines an impracticable 
subject, or will mistake for the truth what is a 
libel upon Nature. 

Perhaps I might occupy your time with some 
useful remarks upon this branch of our science ; 
but I have been tempted to a yet more difficult 
enterprise, and to look at that physiological condi- 
tion of man upon which his locomotion depends, 
and which enables him to think, and to speak, of 
his own being and nature. 

Shall I, then, venture upon his spiritual essence, 
of which nothing has been yet said but what Rev- 
elation and metaphysics teach ; while materialism 
has occupied the whole physiological ground, 
with the advantage of dedicating its labors to 
the senses, and to the indolence of mankind? 
May I venture to speak of so intangible, invisible 
an existence as the soul of man ? I know that 
the demand now is for food for the senses. But 
shall materialism have the whole of the game? 
Shall the mind have no part in the chase, — seeing, 
especially, that it is itself the intended victim ? 
Shall I be told that I am infringing upon settled 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 6 

principles ? that I am applying an extinguisher 
to great and shining lights? Shall I be silenced 
by the thunders against metaphysics? Shall it 
be said that physiology has no relation to incorpo- 
real existences ? Have not physiologists employed 
their pens in describing the emanations of mind 
as the mere product of matter, — mere eliminations 
from the blood by the intellectual organ ? Have 
not others told us. that all the manifestations of 
thought are owing to a combustive process among 
the elements of the brain? And have we not 
patiently, credulously heard them? But some 
may still say, what connection has physiology 
with spiritual existences ? Certainly the same in 
relation to man as the merest physics, so only the 
thinking part be of an incorporeal nature. It may 
not be as clear a subject for demonstration ; since, 
especially, it is concerned about itself. Herein, 
indeed, has laid concealed the difficulties of the 
inquiry. The mind has wanted a medium through 
which it may be seen independently of its own 
direct manifestations ; and this neglect of the 
secondary aid has left the subject to the grasp of 
materialism, or exposed it to metaphysical specu- 
lations. This want it is my purpose to supply. 

If the thinking part be rightly turned upon the 
facts which it affords, and these be rightly applied, 



4 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

I see not why a satisfactory amount of knowledge 
may not be obtained as to the main attributes of 
the rational, and also of the instinctive principle. 
It is peculiarly the duty of the physiologist to 
point out, as well as he may, the characteristics of 
the nobler part of man, and its relations to the 
body. The inquiry concerns, immediately, many 
momentous problems in physiology and the heal- 
ing art ; and may be turned, indirectly, to the 
morals, the dignity and the happiness of society ; 
to the general cause of Religion ; and to the 
special glory of the Almighty. Perhaps, too, the 
amount of attention which I have hitherto given 
to physiology entitles me to a candid hearing upon 
this subject. 

But the physiologist should steadily consider 
mind in its relations to the body. Heaven, alone : 
can look upon mind in its abstract condition. As 
presented to the physiologist, the compound na- 
ture of man is the most lofty as it is the most noble 
inquiry. 

" Of all organized beings," says Lavater, in his 
Essays on Physiognomy , " with which we are 
acquainted, there are none in which are so won- 
derfully united the three different kinds of life ; 
the animal, the intellectual, and the moral. Each 
of these lives is the compendium of various facul- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 5 

ties, most wonderfully compounded and harmo- 
nized." 

" To know, to desire, to act, or accurately to 
observe and meditate, to perceive and wish, to 
possess the powers of locomotion and resistance, — 
these, combined, constitute man an animal, intel- 
lectual, and moral being. 

" Man, endowed with these faculties, with this 
triple life, is in himself the most worthy subject 
of observation, as he likewise is himself the most 
worthy observer. In him each species of life is 
conspicuous ; yet never can his properties be 
wholly known except by the aid of his external 
form, his body, his superficies. How spiritual, 
how incorporeal soever, his internal essence may 
be, still he is only visible and conceivable from 
the harmony of his constituent parts. From 
these he is inseparable. He exists and moves in 
the body he inhabits, as in his element. This 
material man must become the subject of observa- 
tion before we can study the immaterial." 

So far Lavater, who confined himself to the 
surface alone ; proceeding upon the simple propo- 
sition that, " The organization of man peculiarly 
distinguishes him from all other earthly beings ; 
and his physiognomy, that is to say, the super- 
ficies and outlines of his organization, show him to 



O THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

be infinitely superior to all those visible beings by 
which he is surrounded." 

If such, then, be the external characteristics of 
man, the mere outlines of an organization which 
he enjoys in common with the brute, though with 
modifications corresponding to the outlines, what 
shall be said of that internal essence which is 
endowed with attributes that have no analogies 
in the brute creation ? 

It is this great prerogative, and the relation of 
the immaterial to the material part, which it is 
my present object to consider. I shall distinguish, 
therefore, what has been commonly designated 
the spiritual, from the material man, though it be 
obvious, that, however spiritual, how incorporeal 
soever, the internal essence may be, it is yet 
inseparable from the mechanism of the body. I 
shall carry the distinction farther than is recog- 
nized by any physiologist of our own times, and 
shall endeavor to sustain my conclusions by facts 
alone. I shall not, therefore, entangle you in any 
metaphysical obscurities, nor shall I, like the 
materialists, assume imaginary data, or like them, 
reason from factitious analogies. 

It must be allowed a misfortune that the subject 
of mind has been, till a recent day, in the keep- 
ing of Metaphysicians. Learned, and able, and 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. / 

devoted as they may have been to the prerogatives 
of reason, and with all the lustre they have shed 
upon mind, their ignorance of anatomy, and of the 
laws of organization, has led them to consider the 
spiritual part of man too abstractedly from his 
structure, and not unfrequently to wander from 
the path of Nature. Their abstract philosophy, and 
the well-meaning subtleties of the less gifted, have 
engendered a reaction which now assumes the form 
of undisguised materialism. Nor is that all; for 
with the correlative aid of innovations upon organic 
life from those philosophers who reduce the whole 
to the maxims of physics, the more revolting doc- 
trine of spontaneous origin not only takes rank in 
the science of life, but is even practically illus- 
trated in the Acarus Crossii, — side by side with 
the Homo Dei ! And what part, think you, that 
these corruptions in Science and Religion have 
taken in the general insensibility which now pre- 
vails in relation to Divine subjects, and which led 
the distinguished President of Harvard University, 
in his late eulogy on President Adams, to speak 
of "a reverence for sacred things as almost 
obsolete"? 

I have said that the bold materialism of our age 
is, in no small degree, the parent of the greater 
evils. And, that you may know the extent of 
the doctrine both as to the soul, and organic life, I 



8 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

shall quote several of our most applauded authors. 
To many of you, I have no doubt, the opinions 
will be new and startling, because you may be 
yet uninitiated in the dogmas, which may have 
had no part in your former education. You may 
have only witnessed the remote consequences. But 
you are now entering upon inquiries where you 
will see the springs which have contributed most 
largely to the turbulent movements of the world ; 
and they will be urged upon you as the fruits of 
a high advance in science, or of civilization. I 
say, of the world in its most comprehensive sense ; 
for the revolutionary spirit is not confined to our 
own science, nor to general literature and philoso- 
phy, but strikes at the more absolute foundations 
of society. It has reached the purlieus of popular 
factions, and hails an Mas malorum as its proud- 
est trophy. In its wildest desolation it was sha- 
dowed forth by the prophetic ken of genius rely- 
ing upon Retributive Justice. 

" Vengeance, vengeance will not stay ! 

It shall burst on Gallia's head 
Sudden as the Judgment-day 

To the unsuspecting dead. 

From the Revolution's flood 

Shall a fiery Dragon start ; 
He shall drink his mother's blood, 

He shall eat his father's heart. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. \f 

Nurst by anarchy and crime, 

He — but distance mocks my sight ! 

O — thou great Avenger, Time I 
Bring thy strangest birth to light !" 

" Prophet ! thou hast spoken well, 
And I deem thy words divine." * 

Let the enlightened stand by each other in the 
terrific crisis. A single one of them may sur- 
pass in power all the Potentates of the earth. The 
"New World" looks on with almost unruffled com- 
posure, but with a moral bearing that will ulti- 
mately restore the equilibrium of society ; while, 
for the present, a mighty people in Europe, through 
the same benign, though more active influences, 
is the immediate arbiter of the approaching desti- 
nies of the human race. 

For many of the movements to which 1 have re- 
ferred we can readily assign the proximate causes, 
and some of the instances, it is not improbable, 
may take the rank of reformations. But it is not 
so easy to comprehend the obliquity which sees 
nothing but matter in the constitution of mind, 
and nothing but accident in living beings. Far 
be it from me to impugn the motives which have 
flooded society with these unhappy opinions, or 
to detract from the learning and intellect which 

* Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland. 



10 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

have been engaged in the work. I am bound to 
believe in the sincerity of the one, and I cannot 
doubt the prowess of the other. Nor would I 
wish to restrain the outpourings of error by any 
other means than a display of truth. 

I proceed, therefore, to state, in the first place, 
a prevailing doctrine of the spontaneity of living 
beings, as forming a part of the ground which has 
prompted this Introductory Discourse ; and the 
following may be taken as a summary sketch by 
the British and Foreign Medical Review. It 
will also show you, in some degree, the extent to 
which this doctrine is sustained and promulgated 
by eminent physiologists. 

" The doctrine," says the Review, " which Dr. 
Carpenter has propounded respecting vital proper- 
ties, and which is essentially the same as that 
upheld by Dr. Prichard, Dr. Fletcher, Mr. Rober- 
ton, and other able writers on the same side, may 
be concisely stated as follows : — Certain forms of 
matter (especially oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and 
nitrogen) are endowed with properties which do 
not manifest themselves either in those elements 
when uncombined, or in those combinations of 
them which the Chemist effects by ordinary 
means. But they do manifest themselves when 
they are united into those peculiar compounds 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 11 

which are known as organic, and when those 
compounds have been submitted to the process 
which is termed organization. It is possible that 
the first of these conditions, (that is, organic com- 
pounds, and therefore, certainly organic life.) may- 
be imitated by the chemist. No one can say that 
the properties do not exist in the elements of mat- 
ter in a dormant state because they do not 
manifest themselves to him." "We argue that 
they (the properties of life) were as much present 
in the Elements as any of their other properties, 
which only exhibit themselves in certain condi- 
tions." So far the Review ; and thus Dr. Carpen- 
ter for himself, in his " Principles of General 
and Comparative Physiology" when speaking 
of organic beings : — 

" There is no reasonable ground for doubt," he 
says, " that if the elements could be brought to- 
gether in their respective states and proportions 
by the hand of man, the result would be the same 
as the natural compound." The difficulty, he 
says, consists in our ignorance of the requisite 
means ; but " we may believe," he says, " that 
there exists in all matter a tendency to become 
organized" ! * 

* And thus the eminent organic Chemist, Professor Mulder, 
in his Chemistry of Vegetable and Animal Physiology, — " The 



12 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 



It is also an unavoidable doctrine of this exten- 
sive and powerful school, that when man dies, 
and is resolved into the elements of matter, his 
vital properties, or his vitality, continue to exist in 
those elements ; and that when the same ele- 
ments become a part of the organization of inferior 
animals, or of plants, his. vital properties will then 
animate, or constitute the vitality of the toad or 
mushroom. It follows, also, upon the great plan 
of materialism, that the soul must observe the 

elements of the organic kingdom, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
and nitrogen, are susceptible of endless modifications. For 
that reason they can form, with minute changes, a great diver- 
sity of products ; and by the operation of the same primary 
forces, they stand towards each other in entirely different rela- 
tions from those assumed by all the other elements; so that they 
can produce a peculiar series of bodies which are called organic 
substances." "Adhering to what we observe and know with 
certainty, we calculate that every elementary body is endowed 
with a great many specific properties, which, to a laige extent, 
are dependent on the same principle that causes their combina- 
tion, and thus on the proportion and character of the chemical 
tendency. If we adopt this idea, we have the advantage of see- 
ing somewhat of Vitality in Dead Matter. This is an idea 
derived from the endless series of phenomena which are observed 
in the Laboratory, in daily occurrences, and in nature at large." 
"Any one who imagines that there is any thing else in action (in 
living beings) than a molecular force, than a Chemical Force, sees 
more than exists." " Upon the principles which have been stated, 
no reason is left fur the dispute as to equivocal generation." — 
Mulder. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 13 

same rule of construction, appearing under the 
manifestations of instinct in animals, and in plants 
according to the nature of their organization.* 
This is the old doctrine of Transmigration, figu- 
ring under the auspices of modern science. 

You readily perceive the conclusion of the 
whole matter. In plain language, the properties 
of life being" assumed to exist in the elements of 
matter, those elements are supposed to be capable 
of organizing themselves into living beings, with 
an equally spontaneous development of the soul 
and instinct. Indeed, it is but a short time since 
we were presented with pictural views, in English 
and American Scientific Journals, of an animal 
said to have been created by Mr. Cross out of a 
solution of silex in water ; and the savans actu- 
ally bestowed upon it the name of its creator, f 

* The oldest satire exiant, by the poet Simonides, is upon this 
subject. It may be seen in the 209th paper of the Spectator. 

t The distinguished Author of the " Vestiges of the Natural 
History of Creation" says that, — "The Acarus Crossii was a 
type of being ordained from the beginning, and destined to be 
realised under certain physical conditions. When a human hand 
brought these conditions into the proper arrangement, it did an 
act akin to hundreds of familiar ones which we execute every day. 
and which are followed by natural results, but it did nothing 
more"! The defence of La Place's system of the evolution of the 
sun and planets out of a fiery vapor, known in Astronomy by the 
name of nebula, proceeds upon the same specious assumption And 

2 



14 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

I just now said, that a proper consistency in 
this plan of spontaneity should equally provide 
for a development of the thinking and instinctive 

now to justify, in ample extent, the propriety of this Dis- 
course, I shall quote a passage of general import from the two 
leading Medical Journals in Europe, as embraced in elaborate 
reviews of "The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." 

And first, the Medico- Chirurgical Review, London, January, 
1846. The beginning thus, — 

" This is a remarkable volume, small in compass, but embracing 
a wide range of inquiry beyond the visible starry firmament, to 
the minutest structures of man and animals. No name is pre- 
fixed, — perhaps in order to avoid the snarls of the narrow-minded 
and bigoted Saints of the present day," &c. 

The middle thus, — 

" For how many millions and millions of years this production 
and reproduction of animals went on before man made his 
appearance on the scene, no human being will ever know. Our 
Author's speculations on the how, the why, the when, and the 
wherefore, this great event occurred, will not give satisfaction to 
the present race of mankind. His hypothesis is three or four 
centuries in advance of the times, and will be stigmatised by the 
modern Saints as downright atheism," &c. 

And the end thus, — . 

"We have dedicated a space to this remarkable work that may 
induce many of our readers to peruse the original. The Author 
is decidedly a man of great information and reflection. He will 
have a host of Saints in array against him, and many will join in 
the cry, from hypocrisy and self-interest. As we said before, 
his doctrines have come out a century before their time." — Med. 
Chirurg. Rev., pp, 147, 153, 157, 

Next, Dr. Forbes, in the British and Foreign Medical Re' 
view, London; also, January, 1846, — - 

" This is a very beautiful and a very interesting book. Its 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 15 

powers, corresponding with that of the general 
organization, and according to the unique phe- 
nomena of mind and instinct. But, as we shall 
soon see, it is not even imagined that the soul, or 

theme is one of the grandest that can occupy human thought, — no 
less than the Creation of the Universe." " We are also influenced 
by the abstract desire to place before our readers matter for their 
contemplation, which cannot fail at once to elevate, to gratify, 
and to enrich the mind." 

Of La Place's nebular hypothesis, the Reviewer says, — 

" So far from admitting the atheistical tendency which the 
timid religionists have attributed to the nebular hypothesis, we 
consider it the grandest contribution which Science has yet made 
to Religion," &c. 

The reader, therefore, will have no difficulty in understanding 
the " conventional"' nature of certain phrases in the following 
remarks by the Reviewer. 

" That the Creator formed man out of the dust of the earth, we 
have scriptural authority for believing, and we must confess our 
own predilection for the idea, that, at a period however remotely 
antecedent, the Creator endowed certain forms of inorganic 
matter with the Properties requisite to enable them to com- 

"BINE, AT THE FITTING SEASON, INTO THE HUMAN ORGANISM, Over 

that which would lead us to regard the great-grandfather of our 
common progenitor as a chimpanzee or an orang-outang." 

The " Vestiges of Creation" is thus quoted by the Reviewer, — 
" We have seen powerful evidence that the construction of this 
globe and its associates, and, inferentially, that of all the other 
globes of space, was the result, not of any immediate or personal 
exertion of the Deity, but of Natural Laws which are expressions 
of his will. What is to hinder our supposing that the Organic 
Creation is also a result of Natural Laws which are, in like 
manner, an expression of h's will 1 ?" (Vestiges, &c.) — Upon 



16 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

instinct, have any true existence, like the proper- 
ties of life, in the elements of matter ; but that 
their manifestations are mere physical results of 
certain changes which take place among the ele- 

the foregoing extract, which is a part, of a more extended one of 
the same nature, the Reviewer remarks, that, — 

" The complete, accordance of these views with those some time 
ago propounded by ourselves (vol. 5, p. 342), must be evident, we 
think, to our readers. To the objection which some timid reli- 
gionists may urge against them, that they are inconsistent with 
the Mosaic Record, we simply reply with our Auhor, that we do 
not think it right to adduce that. Record either in support of, or 
in objection to, any scientific hypothesis, based upon the pheno- 
mena of nature," &c. — Brit, and For. Med. Rev., pp. 155, 158, 
167, 180. 

The Reviewer assumes, of course, that all the misapprehensions 
and perversions of " the phenomena of nature" are paramount to 
any thing declared in the Mosaic Record. 

There can be no better proof of the design to substitute physical 
agencies for a Creative Being, in the philosophy involved in the 
foregoing quotations, than the introduction of causes which are 
wholly superfluous ; since no reason can be assigned for supposing 
that the Almighty did not create the original beings by a direct 
act, while, also, there is no part of organic nature that does not 
irresistibly enforce this conclusion. A single fact, predicated of 
physical laws, proves it ; for all that is known of the affinities 
between inorganic substances is to result in inorganic compounds, 
and farther, also, that their chemical influences are destructive 
of life and of organization. 

It will be readily seen that the first of the foregoing arguments 
is equally applicable to the formation of the systems of the Uni- 
verse.— -(See Note at end of this Essay.) 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 17 

ments after their organization. It is universally 
conceded, in respect to all things else which 
manifest a series of enduring phenomena, that the 
sequences are the results, at least, of properties 
impressed upon the various material objects, which 
are the immediate causes of the phenomena. But 
even this attribute is not allowed to the brain in 
its co-ordinate function of intellection, but all the 
unique manifestations of mind and of instinct are 
placed by the materialists upon the same physical 
ground as they interpret the common organic 
functions and their results. In other words, the 
phenomena of mind and of instinct are ascribed 
to exactly the same physical changes in which 
the organic functions of the brain and of all other 
parts are supposed to consist. 

Perhaps I should leave this part of my subject 
incomplete, did I not state that there is a section 
of this large school who start, in their philosophy 
of the spontaneous origin of living beings, with 
matter in an organic state. The eminent, and I 
may say able physiologist, Tiedemann, belongs to 
this section. He lays down their modification 
of the doctrine in the following manner, in his 
" Physiology of Man? 

" The most probable hypothesis is," says Tiede- 
mann, " that the substance of organic bodies ex- 



18 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

is ted primitively in water, as matter of a partic- 
ular kind, and that it was there endowed loith 
the plastic f amity ; that is to say, with the 
power of acquiring, by degrees, different simple 
forms of living bodies, with the concurrence of 
the general influence of light, heat, and perhaps 
of electricity, and of then passing from the simple 
forms to others more complicated ; varying in 
proportion to the modification occurring in the 
external influences, until the point when each 
species acquired duration by the power of repro- 
duction." * 

* The metamorphoses of insects, frogs, &c, and the slight 
variation of influences to which they are progressively liable in 
the varying exigencies of life, are assumed as a foundation for the 
hypothesis to which this note refers. But it proceeds upon a 
neglect of the established and immutable laws of organization, and 
a partial view of the manifestations of those laws as witnessed in 
different species of animals. The metamorphoses, &c, are as 
much the exact result of determinate laws, engrafted upon an 
original constitution of life, as the development of the human ovum, 
or of the seed of a plant, nor are they in any respect more fluctu- 
ating or less circumscribed. In all the cases the metamorphoses 
and other developments of structure, and modifications of life, take 
place in one uniform way, according to the species of animal or 
plant. All the special conditions, or potential whole, necessary 
to the progressive changes from the ovum through the larva and 
pupa to the fly, and in all analogous instances, are as perfect in 
the germ of the mutable tribes as in the ova of the highest order 
of animals, or in the seed of plants ; nor can there be a departure 
from a precise and uniform succession of developments in any of 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 19 

But whence came the organic matter ? This 
question was anticipated by Tiedemann ; for he 
says, — " Although we cannot here answer the 
question, whence came the water and the organic 
matter which it contained, yet this hypothesis is 
the one which accords best with the facts with 
which Geology has lately been enriched." 

This difficulty evidently crowded itself upon 
the mind of our distinguished Philosopher, as he 
recurs to it again, and in nearly the same lan- 
guage. But as the statement is so varied as to 
show you how things are now-a-days rejected 
which man cannot imitate, or demonstrate by 

the species, respectively, and, therefore, no transmutation of 
species, or even an introduction of varieties. In respect to the 
variable physical agencies required by animals subject to metamor- 
phoses, according to their several stages, the principle is implanted 
in the ovum itself, and equally so as in that of man, by which his 
development is started by one kind of vital stimulus, and is farther 
conducted through fcetal life by another kind, while other kinds 
obtain after independent life begins. It is a metamorphosis in all. 
The same law of limitation applies equally to the speculations 
which are now going on among some amateur physiologists, and 
by which a spontaneity of being is inculcated upon the popular 
mind through the analogies in the organization of animals accord- 
ing to their respective ranks in the scale of animated existence ; 
particularly the young of some species and the adults of other 
species next below, and through which it may be inferred that 
they have successively run into each other, according to the doc- 
trine set forth in the text above. 



20 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

experiment, 1 shall repeat it. — " If it be asked," 
he says, " whence organic matters proceed, how 
they are produced, together with the power of 
- formation inherent in them, we are necessitated 
candidly to confess our ignorance on the subject, 
inasmuch as the first origin of organic matters 
and living bodies is altogether beyond the range 
of experiment." 

And now, gentlemen, that great Reformer of 
the day in our department of Science, Professor 
Liebig, shall tell you how those special manifes- 
tations are generated which we have been accus- 
tomed to ascribe to a spiritual existence, known 
as the soul of man. " In the animal body," says 
Liebig, " we recognize as the ultimate cause of 
all force only one cause, the chemical action 
which the elements of the food and the oxygen 
of the air mutually exercise on each other. The 
only known ultimate cause of vital force, either 
in animals or plants, is a chemical process." 
"All vital activity arises from the mutual action 
of the oxygen of the atmosphere and the elements 
of the food." tl Physiology has sufficiently deci- 
sive grounds for the opinion that every motion, 
every manifestation of force, is the result of a 
transformation of the structure or of its sub- 
stance ; that every conception, every mental affec- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 21 

tion, is followed by changes in the chemical na- 
ture of the secreted fluids ; that every thought, 
every sensation is accompanied by a change in 
the composition of the substance of the brain." 
" Every manifestation of force is the result of 
a transformation of the structure or of its sub- 
stance."* 

This is the broad chemical doctrine of all the 
manifestations of reason, instinct, moral and reli- 
gious sentiment, the passions, &c. It is the theory 
of combustion, as propounded by' Liebig, which 
supposes the union of oxygen with the combusti- 
ble elements of the brain. But in my judgment, 
the only combustion about the matter will be 
found in " thoughts that burn." The doctrine 
appears in the celebrated work on Animal Chem- 
istry, written at the invitation of the " British 
Association for the Advancement of Learning," 
and by them endorsed and published. The whole 

* " The higher phenomena of mental existence cannot," says 
the Professor, " in the present state of science, be referred to 
their proximate, and still less to their ultimate causes. [Of 
course, therefore, not to a soul.] We only know of them that 
they exist." Again : — " The efforts of philosophers, constantly 
made, to penetrate the relations of the soul to animal life, have 
all along retarded the progress of physiology. In this attempt, 
men have left the province of philosophical research for that of 
fancy." — Liebig's Animal Chemistry. 

2* 



22 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

work is remarkably distinguished by the same 
chaotic speculations, as I have abundantly shown 
on former occasions. Still it is hailed as the 
" march of mind" — " a new era in physiology," — 
" a new plan of instruction for medical colleges." 
But I have the satisfaction of knowing that my 
examination of this matter has met with the 
most distinguished approval, and that it has been 
clothed in the German language at the very door 
of the Reformer. 

In respect to the subject of mind, there is a 
class of philosophers who defend the main ground 
of the Reformer, but admit the existence of a 
spiritual part.* While, however, they contend for 
the chemical theory of intellection, or the com- 
bustive process, they do not even hint at the 
allotted part of the soul in the functions of reason, 

* In connection with this subject, it may be interesting to many 
to see the philosophy of intellection and that of sleep, as taught 
in chemical materialism, placed in their immediate relation. It 
will be found to be a consistent philosophy throughout, as ex- 
pressed by Prof. Liebig ; while it shows the depth of the abyss 
into which physiology as well as mind has been plunged by 
organic chemistry. Thus, the Baron, — 

" Now, since in different individuals, according to the amount 
of force consumed in producing voluntary mechanical effects, 
unequal quantities of living tissue are wasted, there must occur 
in every individual, unless the phenomena of motion are to cease 
entirely, a condition in which all voluntary motions are com- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 23 

nor of instinct in its wonderful precision and in- 
definite transmission. 

This chemico-spiritual hypothesis I have con- 
troverted in another article, to which 1 will now 
add that the supposition of the dependence of 
thought upon any chemical process in the brain 
necessarily excludes the agency of an immaterial 
principle, even if we allow so incongruous an 
association as the co-operation of a spiritual es- 
sence with chemical forces. The results would 
still be chemical, and nothing more. If oxygen 
unite with another element, and result in combus- 
tion, it takes. place under a special law, and an 
exact chemical product ensues, which neither the 
soul can alter, nor imagination affect. The only 
part which the soul could take, according to any 
analogies borrowed from chemistry, and which 

pletely checked ; in which, therefore, these occasion no waste. 
This condition is called sleep. 

" Now, since the consumption of force for the involuntary mo- 
tions continues in sleep, it is plain that a waste of matter also 
continues in that state ; and if the original equilibrium is to be 
restored, we must suppose that, during sleep, an amount of force 
is accumulated in the form of living tissue, exactly equal to that 
which was consumed in voluntary and. involuntary motion during 
the preceding waking period." — Liebig, ibid. 

Is it not a sufficient objection to this philosophy that many who 
labor hardest, and sleep least, like the seafaring man, are apt to 
be the most robust 1 



24 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

must have been the part supposed, would be that 
of exerting merely a predisposing affinity among 
the elements. This predisposing influence of the 
soul, is meant to embrace whatever may be sup- 
posed to result from its action upon the doctrine 
of catalysis. In this view of the subject, which 
is the only one that can be propounded, the chem- 
ical tendency of the soul would no more react 
upon itself than that of platinum, and the only 
result would be a combustion of the elements of 
the brain, just as when hydrogen and oxygen 
gases are submitted to the catalytic action of the 
metal. And so of any other given chemical 
change. It always terminates in one way. If it 
be conflagration by the contact of potassium with 
water, it will not produce ice. But I should be 
less astonished at such an effect than to witness 
evidences of intellectual results. 

When, therefore, oxygen unites with the phos- 
phorus of the brain, according to the material doc- 
trine of intellection, whether chemical or chem- 
ico-spiritual, it can form no other compound than 
phosphorous acid, whatever the supposed activ- 
ity of combustion ; or, if with those other com- 
bustible elements of the organ, carbon and hydro- 
gen, the resulting compounds must be carbonic 
acid in one case, and water in the other. An 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 25 

exciting, or predisposing, or any other agency of 
the soul, even were the soul a material substance, 
could in no respect affect those results; and, to 
imagine that the soul enters into either combina- 
tion as a third element, and is yet in perpetual 
operation, per se, would be a chemical absurdity. 
You would readily appreciate the difficulty, both 
here and in regard to organic results, which are 
equally ascribed to a chemical process, should you 
attempt to call in the aid of spirit, or the principle 
of life, in any of the manipulations of the labora- 
tory. They are so far on common ground ; and 
if the soul can promote combustion in the brain, 
or in any way modify its results, it should be 
equally competent out of the body, so only it 
could be brought into external operation. But 
no imagination can surmise the possibility of 
applying it in a chemical manner, and, least of 
all, eliciting by its aid the phenomena of mind 
from the most ingenious devices in organic chem- 
istry. On the other hand, however, we have no 
difficulty in regarding the soul as a cause, acting 
through the vital constitution of an organ ;* while, 
in so doing, we get rid of an unnecessary, as well 
as an unmeaning multiplication of causes. 

* See this united action examined in the Author's Medical and 
Physiological Commentaries. Vol. 1, p. 82 — 106. 



26 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

But suppose for a moment that the soul does 
exert some mysterious agency in promoting the 
union of oxygen with the combustible elements 
of the brain, what answer will the chemist make 
as to all the varieties, moral and physical, in the 
operations of reason, instinct, and the passions? 
We have seen that he must abandon any other 
supposed contribution to the chemical combina- 
tions upon the laics of chemistry. Nor can those 
combinations and those laws take any possible 
part in the acts of the soul or of instinct ; and the 
chemical speculatist, therefore, is coerced to the 
alternative of ascribing all intellectual and instinc- 
tive functions to the immaterial principles in their 
co-operation with the vital constitution of the brain, 
or to deny the existence of those principles, and 
throw himself exclusively upon the chemical ra- 
tionale. I will not imagine that he would attempt 
to propagate the latter doctrine under any disguise ; 
for that would be the uncharitable fling of the an- 
cient fabulist. If it stand, it must be upon its 
own merits, and not through any sophistry that 
may seem like a leaning towards the imagined 
truth, no gilding the material device, no conces- 
sion of what may be considered the innocent but 
obstinate belief of the spiritual theorist, in the trust 
that he may finally discern the reality of his delu- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 27 

sion. Moreover, the organic chemist maintains 
that all the processes of life are owing to exactly 
the same combinations of oxygen with phospho- 
rus, carbon, and hydrogen, and the same acid 
products, and water, as give rise to intellection. 
The brain is thus placed on common ground with 
all other parts. It is a chemical process, the same 
everywhere, and nothing more throughout ; and 
it will be seen that precisely the same objections 
are applicable here as I shall soon present against 
the doctrine of mental secretion. And here I may 
also ask, if the soul or instinct make all the differ- 
ence, as regards intellectual and instinctive mani- 
festations, what makes the difference in respect to 
the corporeal phenomena? Let these questions 
be intelligibly answered, and the materialist will 
command an attention which is due to the high- 
est effort of genius. The chemico-spiritualist is 
here on terms of equality with the exclusive ma- 
terialist ; for although he allow the existence of 
the soul, but without any conceivable employ- 
ment for it, and even an encumbrance, these same 
philosophers deride the principle of life, or or- 
ganic force, as " a phantom of the imagination," 
and give full scope to the chemical hypothesis 
where the moral sense of mankind will bear the 
exclusion. But it should be recollected that the 



28 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 



existence of the soul and the principle of instinct 
has been far less substantiated by demonstrative 
proof than the principle of life ; and philosophers 
should be at least as ready to yield to the latter 
series of facts as to the former, especially as a 
multitude which are relative to the principle of 
life are of a demonstrable nature. 

It would appear, therefore, that there is a total 
absence of proof for the combustive or chemical 
hypothesis of intellection, as entertained by the 
school of Liebig, or as modified by others in in- 
troducing the soul as taking a subordinate part in 
the combustive process. Nay, more ; the whole 
of our proof, at this primary step, is fatal to either 
speculation. If any other than the spiritual theo- 
ry of mind, as with all the physical hypothesis of 
life, be brought to a comparison with the pheno- 
mena, there is not a single manifestation but may 
be turned against it. But although an assump- 
tion, without a fact or analogy, the spirit of the 
age demands an elaborate contradiction. 

There is a contingent fact attending both the 
chemical hypothesis of intellection, and of organic 
life, which is worth our attention. I mean the 
rapid ascendancy of those doctrines over the slow 
progress of the spiritual theory of mind, and the 
vital theory of organic processes. Such have 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 29 

ever been the pace of truth, and the flight of er- 
ror. The latter springs into being in a day, and 
its wings must be clipped again and again before 
it will come to the ground ; but the slightest 
obstacle, a word of satire, may arrest the other in 
its gradual march through centuries of time. Ver- 
itas latet in pnteo ; or, as another has it, 

" Truth, like a single point, escapes the sight, 
And claims attention to perceive it right ; 
But what resembles truth is soon descried, 
Spreads like a surface, and expanded wide." 

Or, as Dry den has it, 

" Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow ; 
He, who would search for pearls, must dive below." 

Against the ground which I have now gone 
over I have been an inflexible opponent. I have 
seen nothing in it but thorns and " deadly night- 
shades." I have striven to mow them down, and 
had intended to retire from the contest. But I 
have thought that something more might be said 
on the nature of mind and its physiological rela- 
tions to the body ; and in again resuming that 
subject, T may say that it is with the design of 
presenting a series of facts which afford a demon- 
stration that the soul of man is distinct in its 



30 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

nature from his corporeal frame, and that its pe- 
culiar operations are more independent of organ- 
ized structure than allowed by those physiologists 
who admit its existence as a special essence. I 
distinguish, also, between the soul of man and 
the instinct of animals ; and although they have 
certain attributes in common, each is to be re- 
garded as a distinct essence. To one, or the soul, 
is allotted a greater independence, in its opera- 
tions, of the material part, than to the other, or 
the principle of instinct. 

The evidence turns wholly upon physiological 
facts. My essential premises are relative to the 
nervous system, have been deduced from the 
most accurate and multiplied experiments, and 
are admitted by all. These must be briefly stated 
to render the argument intelligible to the student. 

First, then, the brain is especially subservient 
to the soul and the principle of instinct.* 

Secondly. The spinal cord, and the nerves 
which depart from it, are, among other uses, the 
organs through which the will transmits its influ- 
ences to the voluntary muscles. 

Thirdly. The ganglionic or sympathetic nerve 
is designed, particularly, to connect together, in 

* See Institutes of Medicine, §.455. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 31 

harmonious action, the involuntary organs, or 
those upon which life essentially depends. 

Fourthly. The cerebro-spinal, and sympathetic 
systems of nerves, are intimately blended with 
each other, so that the brain is the great centre of 
both systems, and the spinal cord a less general 
centre ; while the ganglia of the sympathetic are 
supposed, also, by many to be local centres to that 
nerve,* but, like the spinal cord, subordinate to the 
brain. The cerebro-spinal system has, in conse- 
quence, certain organic influences upon the essen- 
tial organs of life. Physical irritations of cerebro- 
spinal nerves may be thus transmitted through 
the nervous centres and the sympathetic nerve to 
the involuntary organs, and the passions, by their 
direct action upon the brain, though not the will, 
may readily affect those essential or involuntary 
organs through the sympathetic nerve. j" These 
organs, and the voluntary muscles, are also readi- 
ly affected by mechanical or other irritants applied 
to the brain or spinal cord. So, too, on the other 
hand, from the same intercommunication of the 
cerebro-spinal and sympathetic systems, irrita- 



* This last is of no importance to my argument. See Insti- 
tutes of Medicine, § 520—524. 

t Ibid. § 476, c. 



32 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tions or other affections of the involuntary organs 
may be felt by the voluntary organs, through 
influences transmitted by the sympathetic nerve 
to the cerebro-spinal system.* 

Fifthly. The nerves are composed of two 
kinds, one of which transmits the influence of 
the will and of the passions, and the effects of 
other causes, from* the nervous centres towards 
the circumference ; while the other kind trans- 
mits impressions from the circumference to the 
nervous centres. The first of these two orders 
of nerves is concerned in the development of 
voluntary and many involuntary motions, and 
are hence called excito-motory nerves. The se- 
cond kind are nerves of sensation, or sensitive 
nerves; though the influences transmitted by 
them to the nervous centres are only felt, in 
the natural state, when propagated through the 
nerves which supply the organs of sense. f It 
should be also remarked, that while some of the 
two orders of nerves are wholly or mostly of one 
kind or the other, — either excito-motory or sen- 
sitive, — a very large proportion of the nerves are 
composed of fibres of both orders, though per- 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 454— 462J. 
i Ibid. §450. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 33 

fectly distinct from each other in arrangement 
and function. Such is the case with the nerves 
which go off from the spinal cord, the great sym- 
pathetic, and pneumogastric. All these, there- 
fore, are known as compound nerves. Exam- 
ples of entire and almost purely excito-motory 
nerves are rare. They are seen in the facial and 
third pair of cerebral nerves. The purely sensi- 
tive are nerves of special sense, and consist of the 
olfactory, the optic, and auditory nerves. This 
double order is perfectly established throughout 
the body, and has brought the physiology of the 
nervous system completely within the range of 
the most exact experiment, and has become the 
foundation of many laws which are as clearly 
ascertained as any in astronomy. The two or- 
ders of nerves or of fibres never interchange 
their functions; one of them being always em- 
ployed in transmitting impressions to the brain 
and spinal cord, the other as purely centrifugal 
in its office. 

Tt is also important to understand, that my dem- 
onstration is particularly concerned with the sys- 
tem of excito-motory nerves, or those nerves, or 
fibres of compound nerves, which transmit influ- 
ences from the brain towards the circumference.* 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 462—475. 



34 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

Sixthly. Influences, as I have said, may be 
transmitted from the brain and spinal cord to- 
wards the circumference by impressions made di- 
rectly upon those centres ; as when they are irri- 
tated by mechanical or other agents, or when the 
will or passions operate.* But impressions may 
be also made upon those centres through irrita- 
tions produced in distant organs, and then re- 
flected from the nervous centres upon other dis- 
tant parts, and even upon the parts from which 
the irritations originally proceeded.f In this 
case, the original impressions are transmitted 
from the distant parts to the nervous centres 
through the sensitive nerves or sensitive fibres 
of compound nerves, and are reflected from those 
centres through excito-motory nerves, or the mo- 
tor fibres of compound nerves, which are also 
called nerves of reflexion. This is clearly ex- 
emplified in respiration, in vomiting, in contrac- 
tion of the iris, in spasms from teething or from 
irritations of the bowels, &c. In breathing, for 
instance, two principal nerves are concerned, and 
the diaphragm is the principal muscle which 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 476—494. 

t This is called reflex action by some, and remote sympa- 
thy by others. There are good reasons for preferring the latter 
term. See Institutes of Medicine, § 512 — 524. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 35 

is moved. The pneumogastric is the sensitive 
nerve through which an impression, arising from 
want of air, is transmitted to the nervous cen- 
tres, and which calls the diaphragm into ac- 
tion ; and the phrenic is the excito-motory nerve 
through which the impression is reflected from 
the nervous centres, and through which the will 
operates upon the diaphragm in voluntary res- 
piration. The other respiratory muscles have 
similar relations to the pneumogastric and to oth- 
er excito-motory nerves, and the will operates as 
readily upon the intercostal muscles as upon the 
diaphragm. But the diaphragm is very conspic- 
uously marked in this respect, and is only infe- 
rior in importance to the heart. 

In seeing; we have the beautiful example of 
the motions of the iris, which are entirely of 
an involuntary nature; although the iris stands 
in the same relation to perfectly distinct nerves, 
in all its movements, as does the diaphragm. 
In seeing, the optic nerve, or second pair from 
the brain, not only conveys the impression which 
is recognized by the mind, but it is also the sen- 
sitive nerve for the iris, by which the pupil is 
exactly adjusted to the degree of light, while the 
excito-motory nerve of the iris is from the cili- 
ary branches of the lenticular ganglion, through 



36 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

its communication with the third pair of cere- 
bral nerves. The brain is the bond of union be- 
tween the two orders of nerves, in both the cases ; 
but for an obvious final cause, the iris, unlike the 
diaphragm, is withdrawn from the will, possi- 
bly through its connection with the ganglion 
of the sympathetic nerve.* As the stimulus of 
light, however, is indispensable to the natural 
contraction of the iris, and is so far unobserv- 
ed, you will readily understand how a simi- 
lar impression upon the pneumogastric nerve 
in the lungs is necessary to the involuntary mo- 
tions of the diaphragm. Indeed, there is no 
mode of destroying life so instantaneous, as 
by cutting off the influence which is transmit- 
ted to and from the nervous centres by the respi- 
ratory nerves. The whole brain, for example, 
maybe sliced down to the medulla oblongata, 
or beginning of the spinal cord, without affect- 
ing, at the time, the organic functions ; but as 
soon as the knife reaches the origin of the pneu- 
mogastric or sensitive nerve of the lungs, where 



* It is probable, however, from experiments, that the ganglia 
of the sympathetic nerve are not relative to the will or sensation. 
Their main office U, beyond doubt, to co-operate with the cerebro- 
spinal system so far as the latter is concerned in influencing or- 
ganic functions. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 61 

the influences for the respiratory movements are 
combined, the animal will instantly die. This, 
therefore, is the most fatal point in the body, 
Death is then mostly produced by arresting res- 
piration, the immediate cause being the failure of 
the lungs to excrete carbonaceous matter from 
the blood.* 

The principle, therefore, is exactly the same^ 
whether impressions made directly upon the ner- 
vous centres give rise to motion in parts that are 
voluntary or involuntary, or, whether the im- 
pressions upon those centres be occasioned by in- 
fluences transmitted to them from remote parts, 
and which, by reflection, equally give rise to mo- 
tions. But, in ail the latter cases the resulting 

* We hear much, and very truly, of the indispensable import- 
ance of the oxygen of the atmosphere to the whole animal king- 
dom ; and I would go as far as any man in allowing the force of 
the expression, " He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," 
But oxygen is indispensable in a very different respect from what 
the chemical physiologist supposes, and how it is indispensable is 
seen, at once, in the effects of the foregoing experiment. The 
carbon of the venous blood, not the want of oxygen in that blood, 
is the destructive cause ; and this is farther shown by the imme- 
diately fatal effects of transfusing a little of venous blood into the 
artery leading to the brain. It is equally true, also, and of all 
animals, that it is the poisonous action of carbon upon the brain, 
to which death is mostly owing in all the modes by which the 
access of oxygen gas to the respiratory organs is arrested. The 
great final cause, therefore, of the respiratory function is the re~ 

3 



38 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 

motions are involuntary ; as are all in the other 
cases excepting such as arise from the operation 
of the will. But in the case of the direct im- 
pressions, it is important to remark that the mo- 
tions which are produced by the passions are en- 
tirely involuntary, and therefore exactly analo- 
gous to such as arise from irritating the brain 
mechanically, or when convulsions follow teeth- 
ing or intestinal troubles, as the effect of irrita- 
tions propagated to the nervous centres. 

It may be finally added, that the two nervous 
centres, and both orders of nerves, co-operate to- 
gether in giving rise to motion in the organs of 
organic life, so far as organic motions depend 
upon the nervous system ; while only the brain 

moval of redundant carbon from the blood, not the absorption of 
oxygen. 

I will also add, that, in an article which I have prepared for the 
press, I have endeavored to show that the chemical doctrine of the 
absorption of oxygen into the blood, in the process of respiration, 
is unfounded, and that its office is what was only lately supposed 
by chemists : namely, that of uniting with the redundant carbon 
of venous blood after its excretion by the mucous tissue of the 
lungs. The more recent hypothesis of the absorption of oxygen 
from the atmosphere is the sole foundation of the present interpre- 
tation of all organic and animal functions, including those of the 
senses, and all the rational and instinctive acts. The subversion 
of this single assumption will leave the whole stupendous system 
of chemical physiology as " the baseless fabric of a dream." (See 
this subject considered in Institutes, § 447^, a — -/.) 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 39 

and spinal cord, and the excito-motory nerves, are 
concerned in developing the motions which are 
brought about by the mind, or the instinctive 
principle, or by mechanical or other direct physi- 
cal irritations of the brain. In ordinary respira- 
tion, for example, the sensitive fibres of the pneu- 
mogastric nerve are indispensable for the trans- 
mission of an exciting influence from the lungs 
to the nervous centres ; but, in voluntary respira- 
tion the pneumogastric nerve is not concerned, 
but only the nervous centres and the excito-mo- 
tory nerves of the respiratory muscles. In the 
former case the irritation of the nervous centres 
proceeds from the lungs ; in the latter those cen- 
tres are irritated by the will. The former is true 
of all involuntary motions when the nervous cen- 
tres are not immediately irritated, and their irrita- 
tion then proceeds from other parts ; and the lat- 
ter is true of all voluntary motions, and of all the 
involuntary when the irritating cause is applied 
immediately to the centres. 

Seventhly. It is allowed that some invisible, 
intangible principle exists in the nervous system, 
commonly known as the nervous power, through 
the agency of which motions are produced when 
they are connected with the nerves. 1 have en- 
deavored to show that the nervous power is a 



40 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

vital agent, which is very variously brought into 
action, either by physical or moral causes ; and 
whether, therefore, motion be produced by irri- 
tants applied to the brain, or by the operation of 
the will or the passions, it is in consequence of 
the development of this nervous power, and the 
direction of its influence upon the parts that are 
brought into motion. But it is not important to 
my present argument that any special mode of ac- 
tion should be conceded.* 

From what I have now said of the ground of 
my reasoning, you begin to perceive the conse- 
quences which must logically follow. You be- 
gin to discern the force of the analogy between 
the effects of those elements of the mind, the will 
and the passions, and of mechanical and other 
physical agents when applied to the brain. You 
see, already, that if the brain be influenced by 
something, when physical agents acting upon it 
give rise, in consequence, to motion in the vo- 
luntary muscles, and in the heart, so must it be 
equally influenced by something, and that some- 
thing must be as much an exciting and analo- 
gous cause, when the will gives rise to voluntary 
motion, or when the passions affect the action of 
the heart. From the close analogy in effects in 

* See Institutes of Medicine, pp. 106—111, 323—332. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 41 

the two cases, there must be equally an analogy 
among the causes and their modus operandi ; and 
therefore the soul, and the principle of instinct, 
of which the will and the passions are elements 
or properties, are as much distinct entities as are 
the mechanical irritants or other physical agents 
which determine the corresponding movements. 
I say, gentlemen, that such is your mental con 
stitution you cannot help this conclusion, how- 
ever prone you may be to materialism. Here is 
an animal whose brain is irritated mechanically, 
and spasms follow in the voluntary muscles as a 
consequence. You see the close analogy with 
the effects of the will. The movements are often 
so alike that you fail of distinguishing one from 
the other. Here is another, whose brain is irri- 
tated by the application of alcohol, and you see 
the heart beating more actively, as a result ; and 
here is a third whose heart is enfeebled in action 
by the application of an infusion of tobacco to the 
brain, — just as it is excited by joy and anger in 
one case, or depressed by grief and fear in the 
other. You also witness the same spasms in the 
voluntary muscles from the operation of the pas- 
sions as arise from irritating the brain by me- 
chanical agents.* Consider, for example, a par- 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 476—494, 



42 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

oxysm of hysteria^ where convulsions of the vol- 
untary muscles are brought on by some mental 
irritation, and where they are exactly the same 
as when produced by irritating the brain mecha- 
nically. Consider, also, how precisely analogous 
are the voluntary and the involuntary acts of 
respiration ; one of them being determined by 
the direct action of the will upon the brain, and 
the involuntary act by an impression transmit- 
ted from the lungs to the brain. How precisely 
analogous, also, the involuntary contraction of 
the sphincter muscles, and their contraction as 
brought about by the will, and where the same 
philosophy in respect to causation is concerned 
as in the involuntary and voluntary acts of res- 
piration.* 

An universal analogy proves that motion, in all 
the cases, is brought about by a common proxi- 
mate cause ; that is, by a determination of the ner- 
vous power upon the muscles which are thrown 
into action, and to which it proves a vital agent. 
The will has no farther connection than this with 
voluntary motion, nor the passions with the vari- 
ous modified motions which they induce in the 
sanguiferous organs ; no more so than the alco- 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 500 ; 514, /-514, g. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 43 

ho], or tobacco, when applied to the brain, or 
when mechanical irritations of that organ give 
rise to similar motions. You also see plainly 
from my premises, that if the movements which 
are excited by the action of physical agents upon 
the brain itself be remotely due to those causes, 
and not to any 'primary change in the brain, it 
must equally follow that the effects of the will in 
developing voluntary motion, or of the passions 
in modifying the action of the heart, cannot be 
due to any primary changes in the condition of 
the brain, but of necessity, to some cause as dis- 
tinct from the brain as are the physical agents. 

So far, then, the analogy is complete. But in 
the case of the physical agents, the causes are of 
a passive nature, and require other agencies to 
bring them into operation. How different, on the 
other hand, with the will and the passions ! Here 
the causes are entirely self-acting ; originating 
their own actions upon the great nervous centre. 
This, in itself, establishes a radical distinction 
between the nature of the soul and instinctive 
principle, and of all physical causes, and is utter- 
ly fatal to materialism. The self-acting nature 
of the soul and instinct, and especially of the ra- 
tional faculty,* transcends even the principle of 

* See pages 50 — 52. 



44 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

organic life ; for that principle requires the opera- 
tion of stimuli to rouse it and to maintain it in 
action. But so far as action is immediately con- 
cerned, an analogy obtains, and we may reason, 
upon that analogy, from the self-acting mind to 
the existence of an active principle of life upon 
which organic motions depend. But we shall 
seek in vain, throughout the wide range of Na- 
ture, for any direct similitude with the manifesta- 
tions of reason or of instinct ; though if we pass 
the limits of Nature, we may discover in Creative 
Energy that analogy with the soul which shad- 
ows forth the " Image of God." 

What has now been said is equally applicable 
to materialism, whether it regard the manifesta- 
tions of mind as a chemical phenomenon, or as 
elaborated from the blood. In the Institutes of 
Medicine, where I have transiently called up this 
subject, there is an argument directed specifically 
against the doctrine of mental secretion ; and as it 
is alike applicable to the chemical hypothesis, and 
as these two make up the whole sum of materi- 
alism, in its proper acceptation, to render the pre- 
sent examination more complete, I shall quote 
the argument there stated. I have there said 
that, — In former works I have presented certain 
facts which go to the conclusion that the mind or 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 45 

soul is a distinct immaterial substance, and that 
the instinctive principle of animals is equally a 
distinct substance from the brain ; and I will 
now add a few words, physiologically, in res- 
pect to the main argument of the materialists 
drawn from analogy, that the mind, like the gas- 
tric juice, bile, &c, is only a product of the or- 
ganic functions of the brain. 

The analogy is fictitious. Both the mind and 
instinct are entirely wanting in every known at- 
tribute of the product of other organs, and are siii 
generis in all their characteristics. This is suffi- 
ciently obvious. But there are other, considera- 
tions which establish the distinction more fully, 
though they appear not to have engaged the at- 
tention of physiologists. What, for example, is 
the efficient cause of the production of bile, sali- 
va, &c.? Certainly the blood, in connection with 
organic structure and organic actions ; and while 
these actions go on, bile, saliva, &c. are uninter- 
ruptedly secreted ; or, if arrested, it is from the 
failure of the organic processes. But it is just 
otherwise in respect to the mind and the instinc- 
tive principle. These are completely suspended, 
in all their manifestations, during sleep, and often 
so with great instantaneousness. And yet there 
is every reason to believe that the organic func- 
3* 



46 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tions of the brain continue to move on as perfect- 
ly as those of the liver, the lungs, &c. ; especially 
when it is considered that sleeping- and waking 
may happen in almost the twinkling of an eye. 
Indeed, were any change to befall the brain, it 
should be more or less manifested by some con- 
sequent modification of all the organic actions ; 
particularly as those of animal life undergo com- 
plete suspension. The continuance of all the or- 
ganic results proves that organic life is in perfect 
operation ; while, by equality of reason, the sus- 
pension of all results in animal life proves that 
an agent, upon which these results depend, has 
ceased to operate. In one case, organic functions 
must go on without interruption, and therefore 
the moving causes upon which they depend must 
be in perpetual action. In the other, and for an 
equally obvious reason, the organs peculiar to the 
division of animal life must have repose, and 
therefore, by parity of reason, their spring of ac- 
tion, in man and brute, is constitutionally fitted 
for quiescence as well as action, and this, as re- 
spects sleeping and waking, corresponds with the 
alternations of thinking and not thinking during 
the waking time. There are various gradations 
in the suspension of mental and instinctive func- 
tions from their quiescence in the waking state to 
profound slumber. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 47 

Do you ask for the modus operandi of this 
constitutional peculiarity? Would it not be as 
reasonable to demand an explanation of the abso- 
lute nature of mind, or of the Deity Himself? 
Must not that be understood before the modus op- 
erandi can be known 1 Is not this problem rais- 
ed like the difficulty of comprehending the works 
of Creative Energy, because li the first origin of 
organic matters and living bodies is altogether 
beyond the range of experiment" ? (P. 20.) 

Again, other peculiarities, which contradistin- 
guish the mind and instinct from every organic 
product, are the quick transitions from sleeping 
to waking, and the occurrence of the change 
without any change in the organic functions of 
the brain. Take in connection the act of sleep- 
ing and the act of waking, the instant suspension 
and the instant reproduction of the intellectual 
operations, and in all their isolated aspects, and 
there must be conceded not only an entire want 
of analogy with any other phenomenon of nature, 
but that there must be a unique cause for such 
perfectly unique effects. 

But, again, suppose some change in the organic 
condition of the brain as the cause of sleep ; what 
is it, I say, that so instantly reinstates its organic 
functions when we pass from the sleeping to the 



48 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

waking state ? What arouses the organ to its 
wonted secretion of mind ? Certainly not the 
blood. Are there any analogies supplied by the 
liver, or by any other organ 1 What is it, I re- 
peat, that brings the great nervous centre into op- 
eration in all the acts of volition, in all the acts 
of intellection % This question must be answer-. 
ed consistently, or in some conformity with the 
argument drawn from analogy. If that can be 
done, (this simple physiological requisite alone.) 
then it must be conceded that the analogy is irre- 
sistible, and the argument in favor of materialism 
incontrovertible. So, on the other hand, should 
the argument fail in this indispensable requisite, 
materialism must stand convicted of sophistry, 
insincerity, and a leaning to infidelity. 

The premises are perfectly simple. They are 
also sound so far as it respects all organic actions 
and results. The blood, as -it is with all other 
organs, is the natural stimulus of the brain in its 
organic condition, and here as there all organ- 
ic phenomena are distinctly pronounced. They 
proceed in all parts with uniformity, and with- 
out interruption. Nothing can suspend or mod- 
ify them in the brain, or elsewhere, during their 
natural condition. So far the analogy is com- 
plete. Now, as it cannot be the blood, according 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 49 

to our premises, which rouses the brain to action 
in willing^ reflecting, &c, or which awakes us 
from sleep, I ask the materialist the nature of 
the stimulus which operates upon the brain in 
eliciting the phenomena of mind ? * 

Thus far the Institutes on that branch of our 
. inquiry, and it will be readily seen that all which 
is here said applies equally to the chemical doc- 
trine of intellection ; since, as I have shown, 
the acts of intellection and all organic processes 
and results are placed by the chemist on com- 
mon ground. If, therefore, it be the circulation 
of the blood in the brain, as in other parts, which 
gives rise to the union of oxygen with the com- 
bustible elements of the brain in the organic pro- 
cesses of that organ, what is it that starts the 
union of the same elements in the acts of intellec- 
tion, or which rouses the chemical display so as 
to awake us from sleep? The chemico-spiritu- 
alist may answer, the soul ! But has he a sha- 
dow of fact, or of analogy, for this hypothesis, 
and can he assign any possible agency for the 
chemical process ? (See page 21.) 

It will be readily seen that objections of this 
nature may be carried to an indefinite extent. 
Thus, what, for example, makes the difference 

* Institutes of Medicine, § 175, c. 



50 THE SOTUL AND INSTINCT. 

between the early riser and the sluggard ; be- 
tween him who awakes on the instant, and him 
who as habitually requires the sound of a bell, 
but a self-acting cause which is more energetic, 
or better disposed to act in one case than in the 
other? Or, why is one man capable of greater 
acts of ratiocination than another ? Let us grant 
that it may be due, in part, to some difference in 
the development of the brain, or to some greater 
energy of the supposed combustive process in one 
than in the other ; why then does an untutored 
mind come, by instruction, to the mastery of sci- 
ence? Or why do we witness in the unletter- 
ed boy a facility in instituting great truths, or of 
seizing upon vast principles, in science, of which 
even the erudite are incapable ? I might refer, 
as examples, to Paschal in mathematics, Mozart 
in music, and other familiar names ; but there is 
one so transcendently greater, and who has cast 
a shade upon the highest order of intelligence, 
that this single instance is abundantly illustra- 
tive of my subject. The recent statement, how- 
ever, by the Rev. Mr. Stevens, of the apparently 
superhuman efforts of Truman Henry Safford, 
supersedes the necessity of a more extended refer- 
ence to a display of mind altogether beyond any 
of the usual corresponding developments of or- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 51 

ganization, or rudimentary instruction. But it 
may be well to say, that, after a very superficial 
attendance at a country school in Vermont, with 
an attenuated frame and feeble health, this boy, 
at the age of nine years and six months, produced 
the " Youth's Almanac for 1846," having made 
all the calculations of eclipses, the rising and set- 
ting of the sun, &c., &c, without any assistance 
whatever; and that recently, in the 13th year 
of his age, and in the same unassisted manner, 
he calculated the orbit of the telescopic comet of 
November, 1848, and with an accuracy, as I am 
informed, which is corroborated by the best as- 
tronomers. At the age of ten years he was tho- 
roughly examined by the Rev. Mr. Adams in al- 
gebra, plane trigonometry, mensuration of surfa- 
ces and of solids, pyramidal and spherical, cube 
roots, &c. The interrogatories were of a very dif- 
ficult nature, resolved mentally and according to 
the rules of science, and generally with great in- 
stantaneousness. For the purpose of testing the 
reach of his mind in computation, he was finally 
asked to " multiply in his head 365,365,365,365,- 
365,365, by 365,365,365,365,365,365. He flew 
round the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons 
over the top of his boots, bit his hand, rolled his 
eyes in their sockets, until, in not more than one 



:i 



52 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925.016,658, 
299,941,583,225. What was still more wonder- 
ful, he began to multiply at the left hand, and to 
bring out the answer from left to right, giving first, 
133,491, &c. Here, confounded above measure, I 
gave up the examination. This last performance 
is not so interesting an illustration of the logical 
power of the child, as others above given, but as a 
stupendous effort of computation it is absolutely 
inconceivable, and throws into comparative petti- 
ness the largest calculations of Colburn, or any 
other similar genius with whom we are acquaint- 
ed. We are impressed, indeed, with a sentiment of 
awe when we think what must be the power and 
fleetness of thought in the purely spiritual state, 
when such a child, by the mere accident of a pe- 
culiar organization, astounds us by such immea- 
surable compass and velocity of mind. "—Nor was 
this early display of mind limited to mathematics, 
but took, in almost equal compass, every depart- 
ment of science with which it came in contact ; 
and whatever the object of inquiry where books 
were the medium of suggestions, especially the 
high branches of mathematics, he commonly open- 
ed the works in their middle, and seized at once 
upon the antecedent premises upon which the in- 
ductions had been founded. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 53 

But again I say, if the admitted analogy be- 
tween the soul and its Maker have any founda- 
tion, then, independently of specific facts, the 
soul of man is a self-acting agent; and since this 
conclusion must flow from each series of my pre- 
mises, and from the analogies between the mani- 
festations of the soul and the instinctive princi- 
ple, as well as from the direct facts relative to the 
latter, the principle of instinct is also a self-acting 
substance. Independently, however, of the induc- 
tion from analogy as to the soul, and looking 
alone at the plain matters of fact, I again ask 
the materialist what he can extort from the whole 
range of physics and chemistry that will afford 
the slightest pretence for grasping at the manifes- 
tations of mind which I have thus far indicated? 

Seeing none myself, I shall return to a farther 
consideration of our subject, as relative to the 
comparative effects of the mind and its passions, 
and of physical agents, in producing movements 
in the voluntary and involuntary organs. The 
ignorant in physiology, or the caviller in argu- 
ment, may assume that muscles are artificially 
brought into action without an immediate im- 
pression upon the nervous centres. There is al- 
ways, however, an impression made upon those 
centres. If it be not from direct action upon 



54 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

them, it is then indirect ; that is to say, the im- 
pression is then propagated from remote organs 
to the brain and spinal cord through the sen- 
sitive nerves. This is equivalent to what re- 
sults from the direct action of agents. It is even 
true of the involuntary acts of respiration during 
sleep, permanently so of the sphincter muscles, 
and of all the involuntary movements of muscles 
subject to volition. An irritation, or other im- 
pression, is somewhere set up in parts remote 
from the nervous centres, and transmitted to them 
through sensitive nerves. In all the cases there 
is a positive impression made upon the nervous 
centres by some remote cause, as a consequence 
of which the nervous influence is reflected from 
those centres, through excito-motory nerves, up- 
on the muscles which are brought into action. 
That power, thus reflected, proves a stimulus, or 
depressant, to properties inherent in muscles, and 
which are the immediate causes in the produc- 
tion or modifications of motion. Take, as a clear 
illustration, an inflamed superficial nerve, or an 
inflamed tendon, or the condition of the gums in 
teething, where each affection propagates an irri- 
tation to the nervous centres, by which the nervous 
influence is rendered an exciting agent, and is re • 
fleeted as such upon various muscles, and throws 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 55 

them into convulsive action. Nux vomica, ad- 
ministered by the stomach, will produce the same 
chain of causation, ending in convulsions. Ad- 
minister, now, an anti-spasmodic, as conia or opi- 
um, in any of those conditions, and a sedative 
effect will be exerted upon the excited nervous 
centres, through which the nervous influence is 
modified in a corresponding manner, and may ar- 
rest the spasms. (See Author's Materia Medica, 
pp. 170—181.) 

The impressions upon the nervous centres, by 
which the nervous influence is developed, and 
determined with various effects upon distant parts, 
are all upon a par, in principle ; whether they re- 
sult from agents applied directly to the centres 
themselves, or are transmitted to them through 
the medium of parts remotely situated, or wheth- 
er the will and the passions make their demon- 
strations. Take some of the common examples 
among the muscles which are both voluntary 
and involuntary. Let these, again, be the mus- 
cles which are concerned in respiration, inclu- 
ding those of the face. Now, their several move- 
ments are liable to numerous modifications; some 
of which are natural, as in coughing, sneezing, 
yawning, laughing, and others more or less mor- 
bid, as in asthma, hiccough, &c. In all but two 



56 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

of these cases, the movements depend upon the 
excitement of the nervous power through some 
sensitive nerve, which is generally the pneumo- 
gastric nerve, and the reflection of that power 
from the brain and spinal cord upon a part of or 
upon all the respiratory muscles. In each process, 
there is a special irritation of the nervous centres, 
and in each, the nervous influence is brought in- 
to operation in a peculiar manner, and according 
to that manner will be the nature of the move- 
ment. In asthma, a stronger irritation is pro- 
pagated from the lungs to the nervous centres, 
and a more intense motor excitement is reflected 
from those centres upon all the muscles of respi- 
ration, (often including those of the face,) than in 
ordinary breathing, and in severe cases the ivill 
comes to the aid of the irritation propagated from 
the lungs to the nervous centres. Here, then, we 
see the mind and the physical cause brought into 
immediate co-operation in rousing the brain and 
spinal cord. The physical cause is insufficient 
to excite the movements of respiration, and there- 
fore the mind lends its assistance. Both act in per- 
fect harmony together ; nor can the slightest differ- 
ence be observed in the results of either, excepting 
as the mind acts with greater energy, and brings 
the respiratory muscles of the face into motion. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 57 

Take next the acts of voluntary and involun- 
tary laughing. When the feet or armpits are 
tickled, laughing follows as the effect of an irri- 
tation propagated to the nervous centres by sensi- 
tive nerves supplying the skin of those parts ;* for 
you should now understand, that in all the modi- 
fied motions of the respiratory muscles, the nervous 
centres may be irritated through many other sensi- 
tive nerves than the pneumogastric, while in all 
the cases the same excito-motory nerves bring the 
muscles into action. A beautiful exemplification 
of this is seen in the new-born infant and other 
animals breathing with lungs, as I have expound- 
ed on a former occasion ; since here the first im- 
pression is transmitted to the nervous centres 
through the sensitive nerves of the skin, in con- 
sequence of the contact of cold air with the sur- 
face. f That is the rationale of the first breath 
we draw, — standing alone in organic life. Ever 
afterwards the transmitted irritation goes from the 

* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, § 514, d. 

t" The cause of the first inspiration," says the eminent physiol- 
ogist, Miiller, " appears to me to be solely the stimulus afforded to 
the brain and medulla oblongata by the blood, which immediately 
becomes oxydized in the lungs. The former had been in a com- 
paratively sluggish, torpid condition; but the arterialized blood, in 
a few minutes, reaches the brain, when the respiratory movements 
immediately commence." (Muller's Physiology, p. 355.) The 



58 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

lungs. The same thing happens, as I also ex- 
plained, when cold air, or cold water, applied to 
the surface, reproduces breathing in syncope ; or, 
if it be ammonia, &c, applied to the nose, then 
the sensitive nerves are branches of the fifth pair 
of the cerebral. I will also now say that the func- 
tion of the pneumogastric nerve is developed for 
the first time by the first act of inspiration, and 
fully developed, both as respects the lungs and 
the stomach.* 

Now, as to involuntary laughing from tickling 
the feet, it is absolutely independent of the mind, 
and in opposition to it. And yet it is apparently 
the same as voluntary laughing. In this instance, 
the impression upon the nervous centres is obvious 
enough from the sensation ; and the nervous in- 
fluence is so far unceasingly determined upon the 
muscles of the face while the irritation goes on, 
that laughing may continue irresistibly till the 
irritability of the muscles becomes obtuse to the 
stimulus of the nervous influence, or their mo- 
bility exhausted. In a recorded case, a husband 

English Translator remarks upon this, that, " before the arteri- 
alized blood can reach the brain, respiration must have com- 
menced ;" and inquires, " hoto is the air first drawn into the 
lungs ?" 

* See Author's Medical and Physiological Commentaries ^ol. 
i. pp. 175—178 ; vol. ii. pp. 48—50. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 59 

bound the limbs of his wife, and tickled her feet 
until she died of laughing ;* just as some die sud- 
denly from a strong mental emotion. 

In what 1 have hitherto said we find a ready 
explanation of the foregoing case. The act was 
mainly in opposition to the will. But at the be- 
ginning of the paroxysm of involuntary laughter, 
the impression which is propagated from the feet 
to the brain simultaneously rouses the nervous 
influence of the organ and the action of the mind. 
At this stage, therefore, the will concurs with the 
physical cause in a farther development of the 
nervous influence, and establishes a harmony of 
operation, which is at first mainly expended upon 
the muscles of the face. The propagated impres- 
sion, however, soon becomes painful, and the will 
then endeavors to resist the cause which had 
called it into action. Now it is that the nervous 
power is wholly developed by the physical irrita- 
tion, and if that be indefinitely continued, as in 
the foregoing example, the influence of the brain 
is ultimately extended from the muscles of the 
face, and with a destructive effect, over the whole 
system of organic life. The case now becomes 
exactly parallel with that in which sudden death 

* Shakspeare speaks of the same thing, thus, — 
" Which is as bad as die with tickling." 



60 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

is produced by a paroxysm of anger or of joy, 
where the mind is the agent which acts upon the 
brain and develops the nervous influence. The 
rationale is the same as when respiration goes on 
in defiance of the will, the same as when a burn, 
or other injury of the skin produces general con- 
vulsions, or when tetanus arises from the wound 
of a tendon or nerve. And here I would ask the 
materialist what other construction he can apply 
to the cases of sudden death from joy and anger, 
than the powerful operation of some unseen cause 
upon the brain, and through that organ, upon or- 
ganic life ? What other condition, I say, than a 
violent shock of the brain from a cause as distinct 
in its nature from the organ, as the hammer 
whose blow upon the head is fatal through pre- 
cisely the same physiological effects?* A case 

* The following explanatory remarks are introduced from the 
Author's Institutes of Medicine. The nervous power may extin- 
guish life with great instantaneousness. When rapidly fatal, the 
causes by which it is brought into operation must be violent and 
sudden in their action. Examples occur in the fatal effects of joy, 
anger, apoplexy, blows over the region of the stomach, drinking 
cold water when the system is prostrated by fatigue in hot wea- 
ther, prussic acid, strychnine, aconitine, &c. In the case of joy, 
anger, apoplexy, and blows on the head, the nervous power is de- 
veloped in a direct manner, and destroys mainly by its sudden de- 
termination upon the organic properties of the brain and heart ; 
though it is also directed with violence upon the stomach and in- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 81 

precisely parallel in its physiological rationale 
occurs in syncope when produced by an emotion 
of the mind, as in hearing or seeing something 
offensive. Here the immediate cause, as in the 
case of death from joy or anger, is the instant 
and powerful determination of the nervous in- 
fluence upon the heart, stomach, &c. But there 
must be something to develop that nervous in- 
fluence in the brain, and the common sense 
of every one must assure him that it is a con- 
scious agent which does the work. But for the 
fullest illustration of this subject, let us con- 
sider the physiological rationale of syncope as* 
produced by offensive odors. Here the mind may 
have but little participation in the prostration of the 
heart, &c., but the effect be mainly due to the phy- 
sical impression propagated to the brain through 
the olfactory nerve, and the nasal branches of the 

testines, and upon the whole capillary system of blood-vessels. In 
the cases of blows and sanguineous apoplexy, the general effect is 
also increased by any disorganization which the brain itself may 
sustain. But in what is called nervous apoplexy, and which is 
the most immediately fatal form, there is no apparent disorganiza- 
tion of the brain, and this form is commonly owing to a perni- 
cious impression propagated to the brain through the pneumogas- 
tric and sympathetic nerves by an overloaded stomach. This va- 
riety of apoplexy, therefore, results immediately from an indirect 
development of the nervous influence, and is parallel with the 
cases of sudden death from drinking cold water, prussic acid, &c. 

4 



62 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

fifth pair, which impression , in itself, greatly de- 
velops the nervous influence. But the mind 
may also contribute to that development j for if 
the odor were not perceived by the mind, no syn- 
cope might follow. Thus again we have associ- 
ated the physical and moral causes in producing 
a common effect. Nevertheless, in cases of this 
nature, the mind generally endeavors to resist the 
effects of the odor, (when it is perceived,) and as 
syncope will happen in spite of the effort, it is 
evident that the depressing influence is mostly 
due to the direct action of the physical cause* up- 
on the brain. Now let us connect with the fore- 
going facts the syncope which follows blows up- 
on the head, and we shall see, as plainly as we 
see that the physical blow upon the brain is the 
cause in one case, and the odors in others, that 
the mind inflicts the blow in the first of our series. 
The physiological effects prove conclusively, both 
in their nature and coincidence, that one cause is 
just as much an agent, acting upon the brain, as 
the other, and that both are equally distinct from 
the organ. These clear examples will readily 
suggest many others of a corresponding nature.* 

* See preceding note. — To multiply the variety of illustration, 
I will avail myself of a pathological fact,, which appears, in an 
opposite aspect from the preceding, to exhibit the mind as a dis- 



the souiTand instinct. 63 

So, also, if in convulsive or involuntary laugh- 
ing from tickling the feet, as in involuntary res- 
piration, some impression upon the brain by a 
cause perfectly distinct from that organ be indis- 
pensable, how obvious is it that an equally dis- 
tinct cause must act upon the brain when the 
mind gives rise to exactly the same movements, 
whether it be voluntary laughing or voluntary 
respiration ? And what other cause than the 
mind itself? An antecedent cause must operate 
upon the brain. To suppose the absence of such 
a cause is a physiological absurdity ; and to sup- 
pose any other cause than the mind is a greater 
absurdity. Nay, more, the mind, the brain, and 
the nerves, are absolutely indispensable to all vol- 

tinct agent, as well as the relations which it bears to the brain, 
and indirectly through the nervous system, to other parts of the 
body. It is well known that in the delirium of drunkenness very 
large quantities of opium are often appropriate and necessary to 
procure sleep, though no suffering attend the wakefulness. Now, 
in these cases, such is the moibid irritability of the brain it can be 
subdued only by powerful narcotic influences. And should these 
fail of their intended effect, the mind continues in an uproar, 
shakes the whole animal and organic fabric, till death closes the 
tragedy. On the contrary, however, should the opiate overcome 
the action of the mind by its influence upon the brain, the patient 
is apt to awake in a state of convalescence. This action of the 
mind upon the nervous centres may be farther illustrated by the 
parallel which is seen in the effects of strychnine, and in traumatic 
tetanus, as set forth at page 55. 



64 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

untary movements ; while the motions of organs 
in organic life may go on without mind, brain or 
nerves. The heart will often continue to pulsate 
long after its removal from the body. The stimu- 
lus of the air is then sufficient. But should any 
cause, like sleep, suspend the operations of the 
mind, no voluntary motion can take place ; thus 
proving that the mind, or instinct, is a more in- 
dispensable cause of motion than any other attri- 
bute of living beings. 

I have said, that in the several modified move- 
ments of the respiratory muscles which I men- 
tioned, all but two depend upon irritations of 
the nervous centres propagated through sensitive 
nerves of the lungs, or of other parts, and that in 
all the cases the same excito-motory nerves bring 
the muscles into action. The two exceptions are 
voluntary laughing and yawning. In the former 
case the mind rouses the brain without the inter- 
vention of any sensitive nerves, and determines the 
nervous influence directly upon the muscles of the 
face through their excito-motory nerves ; which is 
also true of the blood-vessels of the face in blush- 
ing, and of the production of tears in weeping. In 
ordinary yawning, which is exactly a modified 
act of respiration, the mind, and a physical im- 
pression transmitted from the lungs to the nervous 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 65 

centres, act in co-operation, just as happens in 
severe cases of asthma. But now observe how 
the mental and the physical causes appear, as it 
were, to identify themselves with each other in 
sympathetic yawning, or where one yawns on 
seeing or hearing another yawn, or in talking 
about it ; for in one case an irritation is propaga- 
ted both to the brain and mind through the optic 
nerve, and in the other cases through the audi- 
tory, and simultaneously the mind conspires with 
the physical irritations in exciting the nervous 
influence, and directing it upon the muscles of 
respiration. 

Just so, too, in respect to offensive odors, when 
they produce vomiting- instead of syncope. In all 
these cases, the mind is far more interested in the 
physiological effects than in the cases of syncope 
from analogous odors ; since the odors are so far 
different in the two series that disgust is in ac- 
tive operation in one, but not in the other. The 
mind, therefore, in the cases of vomiting, and the 
nervous influence, are brought into simultaneous 
operation by the transmitted impression, and the 
mind now co-operates with the physical impres- 
sion, and occasions a farther development of the 
nervous power, and thus increases the intensity 
of that degree which is created by the effect of 



66 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

the physical impression upon the brain. But the 
mind is adequate to the entire effect, for it will 
produce vomiting by reflecting upon the former 
action of the odor, and which may have happen- 
ed years antecedently. Sympathetic vomiting, 
on seeing or hearing another vomit, is mostly of 
this nature ; though here the transmitted impres- 
sion through the optic or auditory nerve not only 
brings the mind into operation, but contributes to 
the development of the nervous influence by its 
direct action. But here, too, as in the case of 
the odors, the mind alone may determine an act 
of vomiting by simply reflecting upon a disgust- 
ing spectacle which had, at a former time, upset 
the stomach. 

Now the mind, in all these examples, is neces- 
sarily a substantive agent, acting of itself upon 
the brain, and the nervous influence which it de- 
velops is exactly equivalent to the action of an 
emetic upon the stomach. In the latter case the 
impression is transmitted to the nervous centres 
through the sensitive fibres of the pneumogastric 
and sympathetic nerves, and the consequent ner- 
vous influence is reflected through motor nerves 
upon the respiratory muscles, by which they are 
thrown into convulsive action. So, also, when 
the mind occasions vomiting, there must be equal- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 67 

ly something to develop the nervous influence and 
excite the nausea at the stomach, and the subse- 
quent convulsive action of the respiratory mus- 
cles, as where an emetic produces exactly the same 
effects. That something, it is readily seen, can 
be nothing else than a self-acting agent, or some- 
thing which brings itself into operation upon the 
brain. The physiology is the same as when vo- 
miting is produced by an emetic, though the in- 
fluences are a little varied. This variation should 
be understood, since it serves to explain a thou- 
sand analogous problems ; though other parallel 
examples have been already stated. In the case, 
therefore, where the mind is the remote cause of 
vomiting, it develops the nervous influence, and 
occasions its transmission to the mucous coat of 
the stomach through the centrifugal or excito- 
motory fibres of the pneumogastric and sympa- 
thetic nerves, when an irritation similar to that 
occasioned by the direct action of an emetic is 
set up in that coat of the organ. This irri- 
tation is then returned to the nervous centres 
through the centripetal or sensitive fibres of 
these nerves, just as it is when occasioned by 
the direct operation of emetics. The remaining 
part of the process is precisely alike in all the 
cases. When vomiting arises from tickling the 



i 



bD THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

throat, the mind has no connection with the ef- 
fects, but the physiology is so exactly coincident 
with that which is relative to the mind, that it 
goes with the rest in showing how the mind is 
necessarily a substantive, self-acting cause. In 
the case of tickling the throat, the irritation is 
propagated through nerves, supplying that part, 
to the nervous centres, the nervous power de- 
veloped, and reflected upon the mucous coat of 
the stomach, just as when developed by the 
mind, and when, also, as in the example of the 
mind, it irritates the stomach after the -manner of 
emetics ; and the remaining part of the process 
is the same as when the mind is the remote 
cause. 

Whenever vomiting springs from disturbances, 
or disease, or any novel conditions, of organs re- 
mote from the stomach and brain, the same chain 
of causation always obtains as in irritating the 
throat ; the point of departure being the affected 
part, and the nerves supplying it are the organs 
of transmission to the nervous centres. In all 
such cases, too, as in the example of the mind, 
the stomach must be first nauseated by a reflec- 
tion of the nervous influence upon its lining 
membrane. Then follow the same associated 
physiological influences as when the mind is 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 69 

the remote cause of vomiting. The experience 
of every one will almost enable him to trace out, 
in all the examples, the series of influences which 
I have indicated, and all of which are demon- 
strable by experiments upon the nerves. The 
sickness and vomiting which spring from sail- 
ing, whirling, riding, &c, depend upon the same 
chain of causation. In these examples, the re- 
mote influences are partly propagated to the 
brain by the mechanical effects upon different 
parts, and partly exerted directly upon the brain 
itself. In this manner they develop the ner- 
vous influence, which is next transmitted with a 
nauseating effect to the lining coat of the stom- 
ach ; and so on. In these instances, however, the 
mind often participates, more or less, in develop- 
ing the nervous influence, through some emo- 
tion which grows out of the physical influences ; 
for it frequently happens that a strong determina- 
tion to resist sea-sickness, for example, will pre- 
vent its occurrence, especially the act of vomit- 
ing. The nervous influence which is the direct 
effect of the motion of the vessel then falls short 
of the intensity necessary to vomiting. And so 
of other analogous causes, and so, too, when of- 
fensive odors, disgusting sights, &c, operate, or, 
when memory turns them again upon the stom- 
4* 



70 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ach. In all such cases, the mind r by resolving 
not to co-operate with the physical* causes, or 
keeping down fear and disgust, may often yield no 
little protection to the stomach. (Note, p. 63.) 

Finally, once more as to the mind alone in ca- 
ses of vomiting ; as when it arises from coming, 
unexpectedly upon a precipice. In this case it 
is fear which starts the physiological work, and, 
at the same instant, and through the same ner- 
vous influence which it inflicts upon the stom- 
ach, it will bathe the skin with a cold perspira- 
tion, throw the voluntary muscles into a convul- 
sive tremor, start the eyes from the sockets, agi- 
tate tumultuously the action of the heart, hasten 
the excretion of urine, and not unfrequently set 
up a diarrhosa. 

Consider, next, and in connection with the ex- 
ample of seeing, as stated at page 35, the complex 
but perfectly demonstrable physiology of sneez- 
ing, when occasioned by a strong light impinging 
upon the retina of the eye, and where the primary 
exciting cause, or light, is felt through the eye, 
and the reflected nervous influence is felt through 
the nose, and in both organs as sensations of un- 
easiness. In this case the optic nerve transmits 
a different impression to the brain from that which 
occurs in seeing, and of such a nature that it de- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 71 

termines the nervous influence upon the lining 
membrane of the nose, though not through the 
olfactory or nerve of smelling, but through the 
motor fibres of the nasal branches of the fifth pair 
of cerebral nerves. This reflected impression sets 
up an irritation in the mucous membrane of the 
nose, which is propagated back to the brain 
through the sensitive fibres of the nasal branches, 
and again the nervous influence is developed, and 
reflected through the respiratory nerves upon the 
muscles of respiration, by which they are thrown 
into convulsive action. The irritation of the lin- 
ing membrane of the nose, and the sensation, are 
similar to those occasioned by the action of snuff, 
or other errhines, upon the extremities of the 
nasal branches of the fifth pair. But, although 
the irritation is perceived in both the cases, the 
mind is not interested, in either case, in the invol- 
untary action of the respiratory muscles. The 
nervous influence which occasions the sensation 
in the nose, is developed entirely by the physical 
impression transmitted to the brain by the action 
of light upon the retina of the eye, and its re-ex- 
citement in the brain and final determination 
upon the respiratory muscles are equally occa- 
sioned by the reverberation upon the brain of the 
physical impression set up in the lining mem- 
brane of the nose. 



72 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

And now observe how perfectly the mind will 
do the same thing ; since, by thinking intently 
upon a former paroxysm of sneezing, the mind 
will develop the nervous influence by its own 
direct action upon the brain, will determine that 
influence upon the nose, through the motor fibres 
of the nasal branches of the fifth pair of nerves, 
from whence it is returned to the brain through 
the sensitive fibres of the same nerves, as when 
tobacco is snuffed, and from thence reflected 
through the motor respiratory nerves upon the 
muscles of respiration. And so of vomiting. 

Now, in these several examples of sneezing, it 
is, perhaps, superfluous to add, that the primary 
causes must be equally substantive agents ; that 
is, the light which excites the brain through the 
optic nerve, the nervous power which irritates the 
membrane of the nose, and> also, throws the res- 
piratory muscles into action, the tobacco which 
occasions the same irritation of the nasal mem- 
brane, and the mind which does the same thing 
when dwelling intently upon a former paroxysm 
of sneezing, just as in the case of yawning when 
simply thinking about it. The only apparent 
difference, so far as effects are concerned, be- 
tween the physical and mental causes consists in 
the self-acting nature of the latter. 

In all the examples hitherto stated in which the 



THE SOUL AN® INSTINCT. 73 

mind is interested in the production of motion, it 
should be observed how clearly it appears from 
the analogy supplied by all other causes that de- 
velop motion through the instrumentality of the 
nervous system, whether in voluntary or invol- 
untary muscles, that the mind, like the physical 
causes, is only an agent acting upon the nervous 
centres, while the immediate exciting cause of the 
muscular movements must be some influence 
generated in those centres by the several primary 
causes, and propagated from them upon the mus- 
cles which are brought into action. If the me- 
chanical or other physical irritant which is 
applied to the nose, or feet, or lungs, or directly 
to the brain, be not transmitted to the muscles 
which they are remotely instrumental in bring- 
ing into action, so, also, is not the mind ; but 
from the coincidence in effects, all the primary 
causes alike develop a certain special agent in 
the nervous centres, (known as the nervous power, 
and nervous influence, and nervous fluid,) which, 
by its transmission to the muscles in all the cases, 
is the immediate exciting cause of the motions 
produced ; the power which actually produces 
the motions being implanted in all the parts, and 
brought into action by the nervous influence. If 
this species of evidence be not received, then must 



74 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

all the attendant facts be denied, and every testi- 
mony of sense brought under the Berkleyan hy- 
pothesis. Nor can I imagine any other method 
by which the materialist can escape from the 
demonstration which I have made. 

Let us, however, vary the illustration, by show- 
ing the complete analogy between the nervous 
influence, and causes acting directly upon any 
part of the body without the intervention of 
nerves ; while, at the same time the proofs will 
multiply as to the substantive and self-acting na- 
ture of the mind. Take the simple examples of 
excitement of the heart by emotions of the mind, 
and weeding from the same cause, and the flow 
of saliva at the expectation of food. Here the 
mind develops the nervous influence by its di- 
rect action upon the brain, and determines it in 
one case upon the heart, in another upon the 
lachrymal glands, and in the other upon the sali- 
vary glands ; and this influence starts the action 
of the heart, and the secretion of tears and of sali- 
va. Now, that the mind is truly a self-acting 
agent in these cases, and the nervous influence a 
stimulus to the heart and glands, is unequivocal- 
ly shown by pricking the heart, and thus renew- 
ing its actions, when extirpated from the body, 
and by the tears which are produced on irritating 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 75 

the lachrymal duct in the nose by some physical 
agent, or the salivary ducts in the mouth, when 
the physical irritations are propagated immediate- 
ly along the ducts to the glands, and increase the 
flow of tears and of saliva. The effects are equal- 
ly the same in all the cases ; while, in the former 
series, the mind produces the effects by determin- 
ing the nervous influence upon the several parts, 
to which the influence proves an excitant, and in 
the latter series the physical causes are the im- 
mediate excitants, since they bring the moving 
powers into operation by their direct action upon 
the parts, and without the intervention of the 
nervous influence, or, at most, but slightly so. 
Here the physical causes are equivalent both to 
the mind which excites the brain and the nervous 
influence which excites the heart and glandular 
organs. They are plain examples, also, of what 
is everywhere in progress, of various parts being 
brought into the same states of action by physical 
agents acting directly upon them, and by the ner- 
vous influence as brought into operation by its 
antecedent development by the mind. In one 
case the hand, for example, provides and applies 
the pin to the extirpated heart, in the other the 
mind provides and applies the nervous influence 
to the organ. Or. according to former explana- 



76 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tions, the nervous influence may be equally ex- 
cited and determined upon the heart, and with 
the same exciting effect, by physical impressions 
propagated to the brain from remote parts, as by 
pungent vapors applied to the nose, cold water to 
the surface, pricking the skin, tickling the feet, 
&c. The mind, the nervous influence, and phy- 
sical agents, are all on a par, in principle, as it 
respects their character of substantive causes in 
relation to effects. In farther regard to the heart, 
in the foregoing examples, the coincidence be- 
tween the mind and physical causes, as substan- 
tive agents, is not less unequivocally shown by 
the application of alcohol to the surface of the 
brain, when the heart is instantly thrown into 
increased action, just as it is when emotions of 
the mind operate, and just as when it is pricked 
after its extirpation from the body. You cannot 
fail of observing a common principle in all the 
cases, — something irritating all the organs. 

Such are plain examples, among a multitude 
of analogous ones. But we must consider others 
less obvious, that materialism may not oppose us 
with specious problems in organic philosophy, 
for it may be divested of even a shadow of foun- 
dation. It may, for instance, be asked, how will 
you explain the movement of the limbs during 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 77 

sleep, upon your doctrine ? The ready answer 
is, exactly upon that doctrine ; since the facts are 
of the same nature with those already stated. In 
these cases, the act may be either voluntary or 
involuntary ; but throughout, it arises from some 
impression exerted upon the nervous centres. 
Sleep may not be so profound as to suspend en- 
tirely the action of the will : or, in other cases, 
the motion is remotely owing to unusual impres- 
sions propagated from the limbs to the nervous cen- 
tres. These remote impressions arise from some 
constrained position, or analogous cause, and 
may not awaken perception, or call the will into 
exercise. The phenomenon is then precisely co- 
incident, both as to cause and effect, with the 
motions of decapitated animals ; as when, for ex- 
ample, a decapitated tortoise draws up its leg on 
being pricked, or as a bird flutters or runs on 
striking off its head. It is well settled that these 
motions are involuntary, and that the nervous in- 
fluence, in such cases, proceeds from the spinal 
cord. 

In respect to the movements of the limbs during 
sleep, it seems highly probable that they generally 
involve a sense of consciousness, and an act of the 
will, when it is considered how remarkably the 
operation of the will is under the influence of 



78 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

habit; and how impressions upon the brain are 
constantly perceived without special attention. 
Such may be the case, in certain degrees, with 
the ordinary acts of respiration during the wak- 
ing hours ; but in perfect sleep, from the univer- 
sality and regularity of respiration, the will can 
have no connection with that process. (See In- 
stitutes of Medicine, § 451, c. d.) 

The impression upon the nervous centres, in 
these cases, is similar to that which proceeds from 
the organic viscera, and by which their actions 
are influenced. But in all there is a distinct 
foreign cause in operation upon the great central 
parts of the nervous system ; and so perfect is the 
coincidence throughout, that it follows, irresisti- 
bly, that the mind and the instinctive principle, 
are as distinct from the brain as are the other 
causes. 

Let us next suppose that the materialist will 
demand of us an explanation, upon our general 
facts, of the influences which are concerned in 
sleeping in the erect posture ; which is common 
to many animals. The physiology of voluntary 
and involuntary respiration, and of the action of 
the constrictor muscles, and the exact coincidence 
between the voluntary and the involuntary acts, 
in either case, respectively supply an answer to 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 79 

the interrogatory. You will bear in mind that an 
unceasing nervous influence, developed in the 
nervous centres by special remote causes, and 
thence determined upon those muscles, is the im- 
mediate exciting cause of their involuntary ac- 
tion. It is plain, therefore, without farther dem- 
onstration, that in sleeping in the erect posture, 
the muscles are placed by the will in a state of 
tension which determines upon them an unceas- 
ing nervous influence after the action of the will 
is suspended, and in a manner analogous to that 
which holds the sphincter muscles in a state of 
permanent contraction. Indeed, the two cases 
are so much alike, as there is always a certain 
degree of involuntary nervous influence operat- 
ing upon the voluntary muscles, and of course, 
independently of the will, by which their an- 
tagonism is balanced. This is shown by the 
division of nerves, as when those on one side of 
the face are divided, or paralyzed, the opposite 
side is drawn away. Another example occurs 
in the wry neck. 

The same explanation is applicable to the con- 
tracted leg of the bird, in roosting. The whole 
principle, in all it's manifestations, according to 
the nature of the animal, and the uses of parts, 
has its foundation in consummate design ; and if 



80 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

we may not trace out the exact mechanism, or 
the remote causes, in all the cases, there are a 
multitude of analogous facts which have been 
clearly ascertained, and which as clearly interpret 
the less demonstrable problems to every right- 
thinking mind. The route of the nervous influ- 
ence among the organic viscera, and even among 
the voluntary muscles, is often eluding the knife 
of the anatomist ; and well may he often despair 
of success, yet rest in the conviction that Nature 
operates by general laws, when he considers the 
fact that the will determines its influence upon 
whatever voluntary part it chooses, may com- 
pound its actions upon a great variety of parts, 
isolating many intermediate nerves, or elect one 
only, and far removed from its own seat of opera- 
tion. And so he shall equally find it in organic 
life, where the passions play their part, at one 
moment upon the heart, at another upon the skin, 
or kidneys, or raise the blush of modesty in the 
capillaries of the face, or strike us dead in an in- 
stant ; and he may witness far greater demonstra- 
tions of the same principle in the action of reme- 
dial agents. But the operations of the will alone, 
in its connection with physiological analogies, are 
enough to substantiate my conclusions with eve- 
ry understanding. You almost see the self-act- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 81 

ing principle enthroned upon the great centre of 
the nervous system, wielding at its inexpressible 
pleasure, and through the instrumentality of its 
organ, that amazing power which as far surpasses 
electricity in its compass and variety of phenome- 
na, as the effulgence of the human mind tran- 
scends the glimmerings of instinct. The will but 
commands, and all its associate faculties obey, or 
tumultuous passion settles down in tranquil sub- 
mission. With inconceivable rapidity of action 
it directs all the muscular movements, which form 
the various feats of dexterity, the flight of animals, 
and the melody of song. 

Observe, also, an instance which exemplifies 
the manner in which the will may restrain the 
deleterious action of physical agents, and where it 
displays its most profound and far-reaching pow- 
er. It may be often summoned to the prevention of 
colds, sea-sickness, various epidemic diseases, &c. 
In all these cases it operates, however variously, 
by holding fear in subjection, which, by increas- 
ing the susceptibility of organs, predisposes them 
to be acted upon injuriously by physical causes. 

Who, then, shall go on to imagine that all this 
wonderful display of a single element of the mind, 
operating through a variety of organized struc- 
ture, can depend upon chemical mutations of the 



82 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

brain, or any organic function of that organ, and 
where we should be left with more than a para- 
doxical problem as to the cause of the cerebral 
movements ? 

In what I have said on former occasions of the 
distinct nature of the soul and instinctive princi- 
ple, and of their connection with the brain, my 
remarks have had special reference to the mind 
and instinct in their immediate relations to the 
body, as established through the medium of the 
cerebro-spinal system.* But I will now say, that 
the brain is subservient to the soul, independently 
of its relations to the body, and in all its highest 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 234,/. 241, 500, &c. 

The following remarks occur ar. § 500, p. In respect to the 
subserviency of the brain to the operations of the mind, I will 
add in farther explanation of what I said in § 241, that we have 
the best reason for believing that the brain is especially designed 
for the subserviency of the will and perception, and has compara- 
tively little connection with judgment, reflection, &c. ; and less with 
perception than with the will. The great final cause in respect 
to the soul and instinct, particularly with the latter, is to serve 
as a medium of communication with the voluntary muscles, 
through the nervous power. The will is, therefore, a stimulus to 
the brain, while the organ supplies, in consequence, the nervous 
power by which the voluntary muscles are brought into action. 

In respect to perception, we discover the relation of the mind 
to the brain in another aspect, and, also, another analogy between 
the will and physical agents as vital stimuli. Through sensibility 
the brain is acted upon, and this impression rouses the mind, or 
its property, perception, and sensation is the resulting effect. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 83 

functions ; while it manifests no such subservien- 
cy to the instinctive principle of animals. The 
instrumentality of the brain, in the former case, 
comes through that property of the soul which is 
known as perception, and to which the senses are 
subordinate. The same property belongs, also, 
to the instinctive principle ; and so far as mere 
sensation is concerned, or as it may give rise to 
volition in its simple relation to animal life, the 
results are apparently the same in man and ani- 
mals. But it goes no farther in animals, though 
in man, perception, as resulting from sensation, is 
the great fulcrum of reason, and trie fountain of 
intellectual knowledge. But that knowledge, gar- 
nered up, stands in relation to reason as the fruits 
of the harvest to the husbandman. Every ave- 
nue to the mind may be shut, but the harvest of 
facts remains, and may now be multiplied, culti- 
vated, embellished, by the light of reason alone. 
We have seen, indeed, indisputable proof, and in 
very forcible examples, that the mind is capable 
of profound inventions in its uncultivated state, 
and where no contributions are made through the 
medium of the senses. (P. 51.) And here I will add 
another proof as to the individuality of the soul in 
correspondence with what I have said, on another 
occasion, of the distinct nature of the principle of 



84 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

life ; and it will be also seen that they corroborate 
each other. The facts which are treasured up are 
ever present from childhood to decrepit age. But 
as the brain is constantly subject to renewals, the 
facts should go with the parts upon which they are 
impressed, if the brain alone be their receptacle. 
Or, in the language of organic chemistry, all for- 
mer ideas should burn out as the parts of the brain 
upon which they are impressed may undergo com- 
bustion. It should be the same in this respect as 
with the transcript of ideas upon paper after the 
paper is burnt. Nor can any loss of knowledge 
be assumed as a proof that such an obliteration of 
ideas is owing to the supposed combustive pro- 
cess, or to any other mutations of the brain ; since 
that is contradicted by the indelible nature of a 
greater amount of knowledge through the lapse 
of years. Why are the events of childhood fresh 
to the octogenarian, when those of the day are 
speedily forgotten ? Why may memory be train- 
ed with especial reference to particular subjects, 
and to a forgetfulness of others, or disciplined to 
the general compass of knowledge ; or why is it 
the tendency of mnemonics to impair the whole 
mind? Materialism must here be consistent, and 
stand on its own philosophy. But the soul, as 
also the instinctive principle, being of anunchang- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 85 

ing nature, (as proved by these very facts,) holds 
fast the treasury of knowledge, or the improve- 
ments it may gain. And so of the principle of 
life and those permanent impressions which come 
to it through the medium of the body.* 

In respect to knowledge, and its independ- 
ent improvement, the will alone may summon, 
through other elements of the mind, a host of in- 
tellectual images, and render them tributary to 
those abstruse processes by which the laws of the 
Universe are scanned, and mind itself analyzed 
and understood. 

Here, too, we discover a more elevated office of 
the will in the control which it exercises over the 
highest attributes of the soul. There is nothing 
like all this in animals. It is all instinct with 
them, while it is only feebly shadowed forth in 
man.f And this leads me to indicate the most 
fundamental distinction, in a physiological sense, 
between the soul of man and the instinct of ani- 
mals ; nor am I aware of any well-founded ex- 
ception to the distinction which I make. Their 
principle of guidance is limited exclusively to the 

* See Institutes of Medicine, pp. 84, 87, 383—397, 423— 
426, 520. 

t See Institutes of Medicine, p. 122 — 125, where the terms 
understanding and mind are examined, and a fact set forth to 
prove the identity of species in the human race. 

5 



86 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

uses of the body. It is in complete operation at 
the moment of their birth ; when its dawning has 
hardly begun in the human species. It is as per- 
fect in the ant as in the elephant. "The ox 
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 
crib " ; and that is the compass of their knowl- 
edge. It has no higher aim in the brute than the 
mere xoants of organic life, and it never oper- 
ates without manifesting effects, either active or 
passive, in the mechanism of animal life. That 
is its grand characteristic, and its broadest contra- 
distinction from the mind. It terminates there ; 
and reason, therefore, must prompt the conclusion 
that the instinctive principle perishes with the bo- 
dy. But how different with the soul, which spans 
the sciences, rolls up its vast acquisitions from the 
depths of analogy, the majestic stream, which, as 
Horace has it, labitur et labetur in omne vol- 
ubilis aivum, and sees in itself " the Image of 
God " ! All its noblest functions have no rela- 
tion whatever to the uses of the body. The un- 
tutored savage has all the perfection of life that is 
enjoyed by a Newton. He may become a New- 
ton without a gain to his corporeal being. Here, 
in the exercise of reason, all physiological analo- 
gies fail. There is no participation of the nerves, 
no influences seen upon any part of the organism. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 87 

We look upon its manifestations as apparently 
emanating' from itself alone.* By parity of rea- 
son, therefore, as it respects instinct, we must con- 
clude that the soul will continue to exist without 
the body. Nay, more, the conclusion derives no 
little support from the argument drawn as to the 
perishable nature of instinct. The facts, in both 
the cases, concur together in advancing the de- 
monstration. If I might, also, be permitted to 
deviate, for a moment, from my physiological 
ground, to final causes of a moral nature, I would 

* This is manifestly allied to Creative Energy, and is probably 
what is meant by the " Image of God/' since, also, it is the grand 
distinction between the soul and the principle of instinct. 

" The soul," says Addison, " considered with its Creator, is 
like one of those mathematical lines (the asymptotes of the hy- 
perbola) that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without 
the possibility of touching it ; and there can be no thought so 
transporting as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approach- 
es to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of 
happiness I" 

Here, also, see Addison's beautiful metaphysical argument up- 
on dreams, as to the nature of the soul, in Spectator, No. 487. 

To facilitate a farther analysis, through physiological princi- 
ples, of the subject, as embraced in the note at page 82, I may 
say, that while the rational properties, as judgment, reflection, 
&c, act, as it were, in behalf of reason, and in apparent inde- 
pendence of the brain, the will manifests a like independence 
in directing the processes of reason. The operation is then real- 
ized only through the medium of consciousness. But, in all its 
manifestations upon the voluntary muscles it rouses the brain 



OO THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

point., your attention to the manifest uses of ani- 
mals for the human race, as a farther proof of 
their absolute extinction when those ends are ful- 
filled ; and on the other hand, to the noble and 
sublime objects of man in his no less obvious 
companionship with God, as equally conclusive of 
the perpetuity of his being. 

Still, the analogies between the soul and the 
principle of instinct are such, that if one be a 
distinct essence from the brain, so must be the 
other. But the great practical final causes of 

into action, develops the nervous influence, and directs it upon 
the organs which are set in motion. This variety in the func- 
tions of the will, and which is demonstrable in respect to the 
muscles, is very expressive of the relations which the soul and the 
principle of instinct bear to the brain, though operating in ani- 
mals only in the lower aspect of volition. But its combined pre- 
rogatives in man show us forcibly the self-acting nature of mind, 
and that the brain, in its relations to the body, is especially de- 
signed as a medium through which the soul and instinctive prin- 
ciple may govern the animal fabric ; while the organs of animal 
life do the mutual office, through the same medium, of conveying 
impressions to the immaterial part. It may be also farther said, 
that, since there is nothing in the manifestations of the will, when 
it operates in the processes of reason, which denotes any develop- 
ment of nervous influence, while that influence is strongly dis- 
played when the action of the will refers to the organs of volition, 
this distinction in its moral and physical functions corresponds 
exactly with my inductions as it respects the general consti- 
tution of mind, and the relation which the mind bears in other 
respects to the body. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 89 

the soul and the principle of instinct, independ- 
ently of our other facts, are broad fundamental 
distinctions between them ; nor have they, with- 
in my knowledge, been hitherto indicated. It 
is, however, only a display of the common law 
of analogies which prevails throughout organic 
nature. The coincidence and the distinction be- 
tween reason and instinct are far less remarkable 
than the corresponding analogies and distinctions 
which are supplied by organic life in its greatest 
extremes ; for there is not a single organic func- 
tion performed by man that is not equally so by 
the lowest plant. With greater reason, therefore, 
should we argue the identity of man and plants, 
than of the soul and the principle of instinct. 

I am finally conducted to some more circum- 
stantial, but brief remarks upon my special pro- 
position, that certain properties of the soul, as 
judgment and reflection, or those elements which 
constitute the reasoning part, act in greater inde- 
pendence of the brain than has been supposed by 
any physiologist. This conclusion I endeavored 
to sustain, on a former occasion, by certain direct 
facts,* and I will now add a physiological consid- 

* See Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 2, p. 
139, note 

As examples of the facts which are there collected, I may re- 



90 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

eration which appears to me demonstrative. In 
any event, I should be glad to see another inter- 
pretation. 

In the mean time, let me not be misunder- 
stood. Far be it from me to imply that there is 
not a certain co-operation of the brain in all acts 
of intellection, and that the full exercise of the 
intellectual faculties, as well as of instinct, re- 



peat the following. The celebrated Saussure was affected with 
extensive disorganization of the brain for the space of five years 
without any sensible alteration of the intellectual powers. — Mr. 
Howship relates a case where, in consequence of a slight blow on 
the head, the whole middle lobe of the brain was found in a state 
of scirrus forty years afterwards. But with the exception of oc- 
casional pain, the subject had no other symptoms till towards the 
decline of life, when she became gradually sleepy and stupid. — 
Here is a case which interests also certain physiological and phre- 
nological doctrines. A lad aged 11 years received a kick from a 
horse, which fractured the frontal bone. " In two hours after, he 
recovered every faculty of his mind, and they continued vigorous 
for six weeks, and to within an hour of his death, which took 
place on the 43d day." " He sat up every day, often walked to 
the window, frequently laughing at the gambols of the boys in 
the streets," &c On dissection, in presence of other physicians, 
" the space of the skull previously occupied by the right anterior 
and middle lobes of the cerebrum presented a perfect cavity, filled 
with sero-purulent matter ; the lobe having been destroyed by sup- 
puration. The third lobe was much disorganized. The left, he- 
misphere was in a state of ramollissement down to the corpus 
callosum." This case should be compared with the celebrated 
one by O'Halloran, where there was great destruction of the 
brain without any derangement of intellect. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 91 

quires, in a general sense, a natural condition of 
the organ ; and their greatest exercise, at least of 
the former, developments of the organ beyond the 
natural standard. This is inferrible, not from 
the direct manifestations of mind, but from what 
we observe of their relations to anatomical char- 
acteristics, natural or morbid. Equally true is 
it, also, from the co-operation of the soul and 
the brain in the processes of reason, that exces- 
sive exercise of the mind is felt in the organs 
of organic life, and too often permanently felt. 
The proper development of the brain is also ar- 
rested, and thus, in its turn, the mind suffers 
a corresponding injury. My general premises 
would lead to this conclusion, and our primary 
schools confirm the principle in the lamentable 
amount of broken constitutions, and smothered 
intellect. Nothing like this has ever been wit- 
nessed from the most severe discipline of the in- 
stinctive principle. On the contrary, by untiring 
zeal, and the lash of instruction, it is often sus- 
ceptible of artificial impressions in the infancy 
of animals, and only then. It is just the reverse 
with reason. It should be observed, however, 
that what has been thus supposed to be a " cul- 
tivation of instinct," is, in reality, no such thing, 
since it subserves no useful purpose, and only 



92 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

manifests itself under the special influences, re- 
spectively, by which the several impressions were 
originally produced. The "tricks," &c., of the an- 
imal, wherever there is a deviation from the natu- 
ral operation of instinct, require suggestions from 
the associate causes. Unlike improvements of the 
rational faculty, the artificial conditions of instinct 
do not operate without the presence of these pri- 
mary causes, or their equivalents, and then always 
in exact conformity with the nature of the exter- 
nal cause. In other words, (for the distinction 
is important,) reason operates independently of 
remote causes ; the artificial conditions of instinct 
require the agency of such causes to bring them 
into renewed manifestations. In the former case, 
the senses are not interested ; in the latter, im- 
pressions must always be made upon sense (as 
in seeing and hearing) and transmitted to the 
brain, when instinct will operate in an automatic 
manner. It is only a display of those low anal- 
ogies with the soul to which I have referred.* 



* Imitation, as seen in parrot- talking, belongs to the same 
principle. But in these cases it is more constitutional, and will 
therefore display itself as an offspring of nature, and as a matter 
of habit, and without any extraneous prompting. What is thus 
acquired from man by the parrot, and magpie, and which has 
been supposed, even by Mr. Locke, to evince a rational faculty, 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 93 

Even the promptings of instinct, which impel 
animals to search after food, whether for pres- 
ent or future use, have their origin in sensations 
transmitted from the stomach to the brain. The 
same physiological influence of hunger, in re- 
spect to immediate wants, operates in the infancy 
of man, though without discrimination, for the 
infant will as readily suck at all things else as at 
the breast. Its apparent instinctive impulses go 
no farther than the movement of the mouth ; and 
that is all the display of instinct it evinces, unless 
farther shown by its cries when hunger remains 
unappeased. Yet even is this urged as a parallel 
example with the promptings of instinct in ani- 
mals, that an identity may be established between 
instinct and reason. But as soon as reason ob- 
tains its development, it displays an endless vari- 
ety of inventions for the sustenance of life, which 



is derived by other birds from other songsters, particularly by the 
American mockingbird, and catbird, who appropriate the notes 
of all other warblers. Now, there is nothing more in parrot-talk- 
ing than ia these last examples. They go towards the illustra- 
tion of our subject in showing how instinct is adapted to the pe- 
culiarities of organization in different animals, while in man the 
will is enabled through the rational faculties to imitate every va- 
riety of voice and vocal music, and to perform almost endless 
combinations of muscular movements which are never executed 
by animals. 

5* 



94 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

are wholly irrespective of associations with the 
original physiological incitements. "It casteth 
bread upon the waters, that it may find it after 
many days." Whatever similitude may seem to 
exist between these acts of intelligence and the 
acts of the animal in procuring food, or providing 
for the future, organic influences are interested 
in the latter as often as hunger returns ; and so 
far as the processes are dependent, in animals, 
upon the inscrutable constitution of instinct, they 
are contradistinguished from all the analogous 
manifestations in man, by their uudeviating uni- 
formity in animals, and according, also, to the 
species of animal. Man, it is true, is, like the 
animal, protected in his organic condition by a 
sense of hunger ; but it operates in him, in sup- 
plying the wants of nature, in an endless variety 
of ways, and at times only when most compati- 
ble with other occupations, or most conducive to 
a " feast of reason and a flow of soul " ; or, the 
impulse maybe resisted till starvation takes place. 
In animals, on the contrary, the sense of hunger 
is the time for eating. That is its aim and end, 
and the whole of its compass.* 



* " Thou makest darkness, and it is night ; wherein all the 
beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 95 

Hence, also, it will be seen that memory is dif- 
ferent in man from its nature in animals. In the 
former it is often relative alone to acquirements 
which the mind has made through its own pro- 
cesses of reflection, and they may be as vast and 
profound as the elaborate inductions which led to 
the discovery of the universal law of gravitation, 
and thence to the calculation of the existence of 
the planet Neptune. Nor does memory require 
any extraneous aid, like the apparently corres- 
ponding function in animals. It is a rational 
function in one, independent of sense ; an instinc- 
tive one in the other, and dependent upon sense. 
In one it may involve a vast complexity of ideas ; 
in the other it is relative to the single impression 
which had been transmitted to the brain by some 
external cause, and which can be recalled only by 
renewed applications of the same or analogous 
causes. By extending the analysis in this man- 
ner, it will be seen that it is all soul in man, and 
all instinct in animals. Nevertheless, it is due to 



their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they 
gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. 
Man goeth forth to his work and to his .labor until the evening." 
" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." " Behold the 
fowls of the air ; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor ga- 
ther into barns ; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them" 



96 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

truth that it should be conceded that some of the 
manifestations of instinct appear to be insuscepti- 
ble of explanation upon the physiological grounds 
which lie at the foundation of my demonstration ; 
such, for example, as the migration of animals, 
the unerring flight of the carrier-pigeon, and the 
return of the bee to its hive through miles of track- 
less air. Exceptions, however, of this nature are 
but few, and if they be admitted to surpass our 
present knowledge, the probability will be allow- 
ed, through the weight of analogies, that even 
these problems will be seen to be related to the 
common physiological laws which rule the in- 
stinctive principle in its ordinary operations, and 
more especially so as they refer, in common with 
the rest, to the wants of organic life. It should be 
also considered that each act is distinguished by 
its simplicity, is peculiar, in certain respects, to 
each species of the animals so endowed, while the 
endowments, and their several peculiarities, re- 
spectively, are forever attendant on every individ- 
ual of the species, always operating in one uniform 
way. 

But if such be some of the difficult problems in 
the physiology of instinct, they may be applied 
with abundant effect in establishing the distinc- 
tion between instinct and reason ; since the latter 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 97 

is incapable of the same achievements, and there- 
fore a proof of their dependence upon a principle 
which is very different from reason. But the 
most curious problem in the history of instinct 
is its natural mutations in certain animals, and 
which carry with them an abundant proof of the 
radical distinction between that principle and the 
soul, and that the former is designed for the mere 
purposes of organic life. It has been seen in a 
note at page 18, that many animals are subject to 
what is called metamorphosis, but that there is no 
other principle concerned in the successive devel- 
opments of structure in those cases than what 
obtains in the evolution of the human ovum. A 
common law prevails in that respect throughout 
the animal and vegetable tribes. But in many of 
the instances the changes of organization, which 
have acquired the name of metamorphosis, are far 
greater than in the rest. This is especially true 
of insects, a large proportion of which have four 
stages of existence, — the egg, the larva, the pupa, 
and the imago, with corresponding instinctive 
habits in the last three. But, in many insects the 
metamorphosis is far from being complete, and 
these partial changes are seen to pass by grada- 
tions into the progressive developments of struc- 
ture among fishes and birds. A series of connect- 



98 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ing links, or universal principle, or great law of 
analogy, thus stretches itself from the insect which 
undergoes the most perfect metamorphosis to the 
highest order of animals. The same thing, indeed, 
is witnessed, under a great variety of aspects, in 
every thing which relates to the whole organic 
kingdom, whether of structure, functions, or laws. 
In respect to the metamorphoses, where they are 
most remarkable, some of the organs undergo 
such modifications as to require a change of con- 
ditions in the stimuli of life which could not be 
realised without corresponding modifications in 
the promptings of instinct. This is strikingly il- 
lustrated by the difference in the wants and habits 
of those animals which at one period breathe in 
the water with gills, and subsequently in the air 
with tracheae, and in the larva of bees, borers, saw 
flies, ichneumon flies, and the full grown insects. 
Now all the corresponding mutations of instinct 
have palpably an exclusive reference to the vary- 
ing conditions of organic life, and nothing, bearing 
any analogies, can be more unlike the characteris- 
tics of the human mind. Like the law of develop- 
ment which is engrafted upon the ovum of insects, 
a corresponding law obtains in respect to their in- 
stinctive essence, which shall harmonise in its 
mutations with those modifications of organic life 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT, 99 

that distinguish the several stages of metamor- 
phosis. 

The same contradistinction is broadly shown in 
all the phenomena which are most allied between 
man and animals. The peculiarity of instinct, for 
example, in each species of animals, and its trans- 
mission, universally, to the same species, by which 
many lay wait to entrap their food, but variously, 
although always exactly in a certain way, accord- 
ing to the nature of the species, while others wait 
until the food is delivered to them, and neither 
species takes forecast beyond the present sensation 
of hunger, but in yet other species the principle 
seemingly operates after the quiet manner of rea- 
son in providing for their future wants. In all 
these cases, as in the others, every individual of 
the species, and throughout all generations, seeks 
its food in the same exact manner, to the same 
extent, and with precisely the same apparent fore- 
cast as to the future. All this, too, is clearly al- 
lied to those suggestions of instinct which I have 
provisionally excepted from known physiological 
influences ; but this very alliance, and the obvi- 
ous relation which the devices for procuring the 
means of sustenance bear to the wants of organic 
life, are a substantial ground of induction that the 
apparent exceptions are founded in corresponding 



100 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

physiological laws.* The pigeon returns to his 
distant home for his accustomed supply of food, 
and the bee to lay up for the future. That corres- 
pondence between the peculiarities of instinct and 
the mechanism in animal and organic life is so 
strikingly full and perfect in its design, and so un- 
like any of the manifestations of the human mind 
in their connection with the organs and functions 
of either division of life, that a glance at the for- 
mer will contribute farther aid in distinguish- 
ing the soul from the instinctive principle, and 
in proving the absolute existence of instinct as 
a distinct essence of the brute creation. Now, 
it will be found that in every species of ani- 
mal, excepting man, the promptings of instinct, 
in the pursuit of food, have a direct relation to the 
peculiarities that may exist in the organization of 
the stomach, and the modifications of the special 
endowments of the gastric juice, in each of the 
species, by which one species is enabled to con- 
vert flesh, another nuts, and another hay, &c, into 
one homogeneous substance, called chyme, and 
which, from man to the lowest tribes, is apparent- 
ly alike in all, whatever the nature and the variety 
of the food. But the agreement between man and 

* See Institutes of Medicine, § 353, 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 101 

brutes is limited to that result ; and what is true 
of the precise adaptations of instinct to the organic 
conditions, and its invariable operation in one es- 
tablished way, according to the nature of the ani- 
mal, is in no way true of the human mind ; for 
the latter operates, in this respect, according to 
other acts which involve the exercise of judgment, 
&c., and very variously, also, according to indivi- 
dual suggestions of reason, passion, love of sensual 
gratifications, the exigencies of disease, &c. ; or, 
in the vast uncivilized regions, no provision is 
made for future wants. 

Since, therefore, instinct has its special consti- 
tution conforming to the organization of the sto- 
mach and the peculiarities of the gastric juice, 
we shall see how far it is related in its peculiari- 
ties to other varieties in the organs of organic 
life, and .to the varieties in the mechanism of 
animal life, by considering how all these pecu- 
liarities in every species, respectively, have an 
equally direct reference, as the peculiarities of 
instinct, to the special organization of the stom- 
ach and special constitution of the gastric juice. 
If, therefore, such be the reiation of the whole 
mechanism of animals, both organic and ani- 
mal, to the special condition of the stomach 
and gastric juice in their adaptation to the va- 



102 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

rieties of food, in the several species, it is obvi- 
ous that instinct in all the species, respectively, 
must be constituted with a corresponding refer- 
ence to every part of the organization. Now 
an intestine, claw, tooth, hoof or any bone of 
an unknown animal being given, we may con- 
struct a skeleton, say from the bone, that shall 
be nearly true to nature in all its parts. We 
may then proceed to cover it with muscles, pro- 
vide it with claws, or hoofs, and special kinds 
of teeth, &c, and lastly, we can tell from that 
tusk, or claw, or hoof, or other bone, what was 
the structure of the digestive apparatus, and to 
what kind of food the gastric juice was specifi- 
cally adapted, and what were the peculiar instinct 
and habits of the animal ; so special is the adap- 
tation of all other parts of the organization, both 
in animal and organic life, and all the habits and 
instincts of animals, to the peculiarities of the di- 
gestive organs in every species. 

How different with man in ail that relates to 
his organic wants ! His means are endless, as 
various as the individuals, critically referring to 
his constitution, fluctuations of health, &c. They 
are intellectual means, in which judgment and 
reflection take the lead. 

However the inquiry may be pursued, it will 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 103 

always result in a uniform way. To enable you 
to pursue it most readily, I may point your at- 
tention to the correspondence between the in- 
stinct of animals and their weapons of defence ; 
each species of animals, and all the individuals 
of the species, acting defensively or offensive- 
ly according to the special weapons with which 
they are provided. These means of protection 
embrace not only such as are actively employed, 
like horns, but others of a passive nature, vary- 
ing from the quills of the porcupine to the ar- 
mor of the rhinoceros and the scales of fishes. 
All the natural animal poisons fall, also, under 
the same denomination, as do, likewise, the gal- 
vanism of the electrical eel, and the ink of the 
cuttlefish. Many of the important members of 
animal life embrace, also, among their designs 
that of self protection ; such as the claws, teeth, 
beaks, &c, of beasts of prey. So, too, the poison 
of serpents, and the weapon of the swordfish, are 
designed as well for self-preservation, as for pro- 
curing the means of subsistence. Again, certain 
animals, and those, too, of inferior orders, such 
as cockroaches, some species of worms, often af- 
fect the appearance of death when closely pur- 
sued ; and where this is seen in one animal, it is 
common to all the individuals of the species. 



104 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

Other animals, as many birds that keep near the 
ground, are protected by the color of their plu- 
mage ; and in these cases instinct displays itself 
in conformity with the special means of protec- 
tion, and the animal lies close. It starts only 
when discovered, and then the wings or legs be- 
come the means of. safety. The peculiarities in 
all the species are perpetuated with so little vari- 
ation, that they show themselves like the results 
of some well-contrived machinery. In all the 
cases there is a manifest unity of designs, which 
conspire together for the well-being of organic 
life. Or, where the means of safety which I 
have mentioned are wanting, substitutes exist for 
their flight or retreat, &c, and where instinct is 
equally and exclusively adapted to the physical 
provisions. In all the cases, too, the means of 
defence, of offence, of flight, or of whatever vari- 
ety or modification, are adapted to all the me- 
chanism in animal life, to special sensation, (fee; 
and, according to the whole, will be the special 
promptings of instinct for the protection of the 
individual. Fear, in its ordinary acceptation, 
therefore, is not the impulse which sets in mo- 
tion the means of safety, in animals, or only so, 
at most, in a limited number; and this is seen 
especially in the numerous species whose mode 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 105 

of defence is aggressive. I need not add how 
entirely otherwise it is with man, who adopts all 
modes of defence, and how obviously dependent 
upon totally different promptings. 

It is farther worthy of observation, as showing, 
by analogy, how universally related, and how 
entirely restricted, is the instinctive principle to 
the exigencies of organic life, that we find nu- 
merous species of plants provided with various 
means of protection, but forever the same in the 
same species, and for exactly the same security 
as the corresponding endowments of animals. 
Such, therefore, are the provisions of nature for 
the protection of organic life where reason can- 
not wield its power. 

But observe another fact which equally sepa- 
rates instinct from the soul. The young animal 
will turn from danger about as impulsively as 
the old, while the human infant will thrust its 
hand into the blaze of a candle sooner than it 
will seize the nourishment which is simultane- 
ously offered. In animals, indeed, the most ex- 
quisite sensitiveness to danger prevails, trans- 
cending even the promptings of hunger. The 
predominance of the principle in animals is de- 
signed alone for the preservation of organic life, 
and such are their exposures, and so limited their 



106 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

conceptions, it is made to operate with great uni- 
formity and instantaneousness. In man, on the 
contrary, its impulses are comparatively feeble 
and slow, and, so far as it obtains, it aims at a 
variety of objects. Examples are often adduced 
either of an apparent cultivation, or of a natural 
exaltation, of the instinctive perception of dan- 
ger, with a view to the identity of instinct and 
reason. One of the strongest is seen in the ele- 
phant on crossing a bridge, or when embarking 
on a steamboat, as he first presses the bridge or 
the boat with a single foot to learn their stability. 
Instinct is here constituted with reference to the 
weight of the animal, who would be otherwise 
exposed to frequent injuries, and the associations 
that are indispensable to safety are early formed, 
But they go no farther, and this particular de- 
monstration is seen only in animals that may 
break a bridge or sink a boat. It is, however 3 
only an instance of the ordinary impulsive asso- 
ciations which are always in operation in cases 
of danger, and is exactly similar to the careful 
tread of the smooth-shod horse when about step- 
ping upon ice, (though not the rough-shod,) and 
to the doubling of the hare as pursued in the 
chase, or the wariness of the fox in eluding the 
trap, or the squirrel in his curious expedients to 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 107 

escape from the sportsman, &c. The variety in 
these examples is almost as great as the species of 
animals, and they all belong to that exquisite prin- 
ciple which warns them of approaching danger. 
It is often seen, indeed, in the aspect of mutual 
protection among animals of the same species, 
when it always operates according to the nature 
of the species. The crow has his sentinel, and 
the affrighted ant throws the whole hive into the 
same alarm. And now, if this analysis be pur- 
sued through an obvious series of analogies, it 
will be found that the habits of bees in relation 
to their queen, and many other remarkable prob- 
lems in the history of instinct, are allied to the 
principle which I have just considered. 

Another shade of difference in the general prin- 
ciple occurs in an example which has been pre- 
sented by metaphysicians to illustrate the sup- 
posed identity of instinct and reason. It is that 
of the dog, when making for a boat, who has 
been seen once, at least, to lay out the plan of 
first ascending the bank of a stream above the 
boat, that the distance between may compensate 
for the motion of the water, which would other- 
. wise carry him below his destination. I present 
the example in its strongest light, and as implying 
all that can be surmised of a rational process. But, 



108 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

with all instances of a similar nature, it falls with- 
in the common laws of the instinctive principle, 
which are just so far operative, according to the 
species of animal, as shall subserve the exigen- 
cies of life. In the case of the dog, this animal 
is more or less addicted to the water, and his in- 
stinct is therefore adapted to the emergencies that 
may attend that temporary mode of life. He ear- 
ly acquires, in consequence, an impulsive appre- 
hension of the effects of strong currents of water, 
and he is so far capable of forming associations 
as may be necessary to his safety, or to his natu- 
ral wants. The instance of the boat is one of 
safety and of want, and is exactly parallel with 
that where all dogs will elect a bridge of 500 feet 
in preference to swimming a width of a dozen 
feet. The knowledge of the effects of a current 
of water exceeds but little that of its quality of 
wetting ; and when, therefore, a dog is moved by 
the desire of bathing, he neglects the bridge and 
takes to the water. 

Various prejudices and misapprehensions rela- 
tive to supposed instinctive acts abound in the 
community, who are prone to the most favorable 
comparison of the brute with his lordly associate. 
The rarity of apparent evidences of reason in 
brutes, and the enjoyment of what is thus unex- 



'THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 109 

pected and wonderful, lead the multitude to seize 
upon what is accidental, and carry it to the ac- 
count of instinct. An example of this, which has 
often gone the round of the public, is that of the 
elephant and apple, where the latter, being just 
beyond the grasping range of the animal's trunks 
was made, by a forcible projectile blow, to re- 
bound within its reach from an opposite walk 
But this was an act of irritation ; the blow being 
designed in the same resentment as when pro- 
voked by any other cause, 

The speculatist points to the care with which 
; anirnals provide for their young, and the appa- 
rent analogy between their attachments to off- 
spring and that of man, as evidences of the sup- 
posed identity of reason and instinct. But I an- 
swer that the analogy is more seeming than real} 
and that however the principle may have an ul- 
timate reference to the well-being of organic life 
in the infancy of man, it embraces in him far lof- 
tier objects, and prompts to an endless variety 
of useful purposes in the care of his progeny 
which have not the least relation to the exigen- 
cies of organic life, but which, on the contra- 
ry, are greatly relative to the culture, the enjoy- 
ments, the morality, the religion, the eternal wel- 
fare, of their spiritual part. It follows them 



110 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

through all the stages and vicissitudes of life, re- 
joices in their happiness, and grieves for their ad- 
versities, with a never-ending joy, or a grief that 
is only equalled by the suffering of the offspring. 
When intercourse fails, every expedient is devis- 
ed, from the tardy messenger to the electric tele- 
graph, to impart renewed expressions of affection, 
and fresh hopes of prosperity. And how is it on 
the part of the offspring ? Does not every heart 
beat responsively to the Divine command to "hon- 
or thy father and thy mother " ? And can there 
be imagined a broader distinction between the at- 
tachments of animals and of mankind than what 
Scripture implies and what man approves? The 
very attachments which man contracts for favor- 
ite animals flow from the divine sentiment which 
is impressed upon his soul. And then all that 
kindred display of sympathy and friendship among 
companions of mutual thoughts, or of heartfelt 
kindness towards the faithful and trusty servant, 
or the relative partialities between the master and 
the slave, or the universal characteristic known 
as the sentiment of humanity, — where, I say, shall 
we look for the dawning of these mental attributes 
in the constitution of instinct? And what of the 
instinctive movements of animals towards their 
immediate offspring? Wherein is the impulse 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. Ill 

related to human affections? Does it not operate 
alone for the preservation of life, and thus inci- 
dentally for the mere perpetuation of the species, 
as conclusively shown by the total and abrupt 
disappearance of brute attachments as soon as the 
offspring can provide for and protect themselves ; 
and this, too, at ordained times according to the 
species of animal ? Nay, more, parents and off- 
spring mutually abandon each other at the allot- 
ted times, and turn upon each other. 

Finally, the same distinction exists between 
the loves of the sexes in the human race and 
what is observed of the brute creation, and is not 
less opposed than our other facts to the assumed 
identity of reason and instinct. The former is 
kindled by Divine love, solemnized by Divine 
authority, and takes in its scope the loftiest senti- 
ments of mind, and anticipates all the intellectual 
endearments of domestic society, and yields a 
grateful tribute to its munificent Author. Nor 
can there be a parallel between reason and in- 
stinct more degrading to man or more unjust to 
his Maker, or more characteristic of a perverted 
mind, than that which is so often drawn in re- 
spect to human and brute affections. Yet he 
who makes it has a better opinion of himself, and 
onlv thinks so of the rest of his race. 



112 THE gOtlL AMD INSTINCT. 

And this leads me to speak of the very remark- 
able distinction between the soul and instinctive 
principle known as conscience. I employ the 
term in its popular acceptation, as meaning the 
ability and the impulse of man to decide on the 
lawfulness or unlawfulness of his own actions 
and affections, and to instantly approve or con- 
demn them according to their nature. Nothing 
like this has ever been manifested by animals. 
It has a clear reference to the moral, religious, 
and social well-being of the human race. It may 
be said, however, in objection, that the dog, for 
example, manifests a sense of wrong when he 
surprises the game in a manner opposed to his 
instruction, or does other analogous acts. But 
this manifestation happens only under the influ- 
ences of those physical causes which led him to 
act more habitually in a different manner. The 
sense of wrong does not originate from the act, 
or on account of the act, but is inspired by the 
presence of his master, whom he associates with 
the suffering which he endured when his instinct 
was undergoing discipline, and thus resolves it- 
self into dread of punishment. It is, therefore, 
exactly analogous to all the other functions of in- 
stinct which I have indicated, and forms the limit 
of associations of which animals are capable. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 113 

May I not, therefore, avail myself of the meta- 
physical induction, that the process by which we 
arrive at the distinctions between reason and in- 
stinct is a conclusive proof of the correctness of 
my distinction between them? Is it even proba- 
ble that animals have any conception of their 
own existence beyond what may arise from pre- 
sent sensation ? 

So far, then, these facts go with the rest in estab- 
lishing the several conclusions already deduced. 
But it does not follow from what I have said, 
that the rational may not act in greater indepen- 
dence of the brain than the instinctive faculty. 

My argument to this effect is founded upon the 
distinctions which I have indicated between the 
soul and instinct, and upon the analogy which 
obtains between the brain of man and of the 
highest order of animals ; though just the oppo- 
site conclusion has been deduced from this analo- 
gy. But the inference as to the equal dependence 
of the operations of the soul and of instinct upon 
a concurrent action of the brain has also depended 
upon a neglect of the distinction in their attri- 
butes, or an assumption that there is no difference. 
The analogy in such a case would be sound and 
conclusive. But our premises are indisputable, 
that all the higher acts of intellection, every thing 



114 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

which falls within the province of reason, have 
no existence in animals. It is the only thing, 
indeed, which essentially distinguishes man from 
the brute. And since, therefore, the organization 
of the brain of the higher animals is greatly like 
that of man, and since instinct is as perfect and as 
comprehensive in many of the lowest tribes where 
a ganglion takes the place of a brain, and is often 
as mature in the new-born as in the adult being, 
and far transcends, in all. the analogous manifes- 
tations in man, we must logically conclude that 
what is so absolutely peculiar to the soul, and, as 
generally granted, allied to God himself, acts in 
greater independence of the brain than does sim- 
ple instinct. Our demonstrations show, indeed, 
that even instinct is capable of originating actions 
in the brain. But so inscrutable are its connec- 
tions, like those of the soul, with the organ in 
which it resides, that I shall not trespass beyond 
the limits which are prescribed by observation. 
Our facts terminate abruptly at this point, and 
mystery begins. But we may pursue the facts, 
and reason upon them as upon the most tangible 
evidence. We will, therefore, interrogate other 
proof in support of my conclusion. 

We have seen, that every variety of cerebral 
structure, from its approximation to man's in the 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. H5 

higher animals to its disappearance in a scarcely- 
appreciable ganglion in the lowest tribes, is at- 
tended throughout with equal manifestations of 
instinct, though according to the nature of the 
animal, while they are only feebly seen in the 
human species. This, in respect to instinct, is 
conformable with all analogy as it regards other 
organs where the results depend upon anatomi- 
cal structure acting through the principle of life. 
There is every variety, for example, in the organ- 
ization of the liver, from its great elaboration in 
man and the higher animals, until we meet with 
it in lower orders as a bundle of tubes or a simple 
sac. Yet in all it generates a fluid which is 
nearly the same, and which performs the same 
office throughout. And so of the kidneys, sali- 
vary glands, stomach, &c. 

So far the analogy is complete between instinct 
and its organ, and the principle of life and the 
body which that principle animates. But instinct 
must not, therefore, be confounded with organic 
products. The analogy goes with our other facts 
in showing that it is the cause of certain results 
through the brain and nervous system, as the 
principle of life is the cause of other results 
through every variety of structure. 

Coming to the brain of man, the foregoing anal- 



116 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ogy totally fails as it respects the manifestations 
of reason. There is something here which de- 
clares a relation between the soul and the brain 
differing from what obtains in respect to instinct ; 
something which shows an independence and 
individuality of mind as distinctly as we know 
the organ with which it is associated. 

Again, we have seen that in the infancy of 
man the mind is inoperative, while the instinc- 
tive principle of animals is nearly as active and 
comprehensive in their earliest as their latest 
stage of existence. We have also seen that in- 
stinct is susceptible of artificial impressions, re- 
sembling education, in the infancy of animals, 
and only then. This distinction can proceed on- 
ly from a radical difference between the soul and 
instinct ; and the attendant final causes of that 
difference consist in the special design of the soul 
for rational functions, and of instinct for the sim- 
ple uses of the body. The necessity of instinct, 
it may be farther said, is superseded in man by 
the endowments of reason, while no such protec- 
tive care can be extended by the instinctive prin- 
ciple to the new-born animal. Nor is this a 
small confirmation of the distinction which I 
make between the soul and instinct, since there 
is nothing in Nature that denotes superfluity. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 117 

Hence, also, it is that instinct is in full operation 
at the birth of animals, when there is no display 
of it in the human race, and while the soul is on- 
ly slowly developed in its operations. And thus 
do the physiological and final causes concur to- 
gether. And now comes up the remarkable ana- 
tomical fact, which goes, also, to the same con- 
clusion, (although it might be perverted if left 
without its physiological solution,) that instinc- 
tive acts are irrespective of the progressive stages 
of cerebral development, while those of the hu- 
man mind wait for that development. This cor- 
responds, in respect to animals, exactly with what 
we know of the perfection of the functions of all 
other parts at all stages of life, and with what we 
have seen of the objects of reason and of instinct, 
since instinct must be in early operation for the 
exigencies of organic life, while reason, in the 
complexities of its functions, is only ready, in a 
general sense, to act when the brain shall have 
acquired sufficient maturity for those endless phy- 
sical impressions which come through the me- 
dium of the senses, and from which the soul 
gathers its earliest treasures of knowledge. This, 
then, is the relative aspect in which must be re- 
garded the correspondence between the progres- 
sive development or hardening of the brain and 
6* 



118 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

the operations of the mind in early life ; the de- 
velopment or maturity of the brain having as 
well a reference to the multifarious physical con- 
tributions from the senses, as to its co-operation 
with the soul in acts of intellection. The soul, 
therefore, may be, abstractedly considered, in as 
perfect a state in infancy as at any stage of life ; 
and thus does the physiological demonstration 
sustain the metaphysical induction, that, the soul 
of the infant is in a state similar to paper without 
inscriptions. And so may the metaphor be ex- 
tended to the brain, especially by supposing the 
paper, like the brain, to be in a soft condition, and 
that it must acquire condensation and maturity 
before the inscriptions can be made. The brain, 
in its soft and immature condition, cannot receive 
the physical impressions requisite for knowledge, 
and, of course, the soul can only gather and ap- 
propriate impressions in proportion to the maturi- 
ty of the organ which is destined to receive them 
from the external world, and which are the 
sources of its first acquirements. Besides, there- 
fore, the physical development which is requisite 
for the external impressions, that maturity of the 
brain is, also, generally, as a part of the design, a 
necessary medium through which the soul may 
appropriate the impressions. Having made these 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 119 

advances, the soul comes to act in more or less 
complete independence of sensation, and to mul- 
tiply knowledge by its own efforts. Neverthe- 
less, it is peculiarly useful to my purposes that 
even this development of the brain is not indis- 
pensable to efforts of reason that are without pa- 
rallel in the history of the human mind, as we 
have seen illustrated in a most unequivocal man- 
ner in the puny and sickly boy, Truman H. Saf- 
ford. But the brain of animals is on a par with 
all other organs. And thus do the contrasts be- 
tween the soul and instinctive principle corres- 
pond with the anatomical contrasts both as they 
relate to the brain of man and of animals and to 
the human brain and other organs in the state of 
infancy, and with the coincidences in function 
between the brain of animals and other organs 
at all stages of life. And here, too, should be 
brought into review what has been said at page 
91 of the injuries which are inflicted upon the 
mind and its associate organ, and, through those 
media, upon the whole organism, by crowding 
the mind in early life, while no such injuries are 
sustained, but the contrary realised, by a severe 
exercise of instinct in the infancy of animals.* 



* See Institutes of Med reive, § 563 — 568- 



120 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

But I have something yet farther upon the 
topic immediately before us, and which not only 
forms a most imposing contrast between instinct 
as manifested at all stages of the life of animals 
and the displays of the soul in early childhood, 
but can leave no room for doubt as to the perfec- 
tion of the soul in its essential condition in 
the infancy of man, and of its self-acting nature. 
This, indeed, should be obvious enough from the 
complete exercise of instinct in the infancy of 
animals and from the analogies between the man- 
ifestations of instinct and of the human mind. 
The foregoing comparison of the early condition 
of mind with the blankness of paper is undoubt- 
edly true so far as it respects innate ideas ; and, 
for a certain period of infant life, it is also true 
as to the insusceptibility of the brain, in its con- 
nection with mind, of receiving impressions by 
way of the senses that shall form the basis of 
knowledge. Nor is it less probable that all the 
earliest ideas of man are prompted by impressions 
exerted upon the senses by external objects. But 
this will not affect the proposition that, after. a 
certain maturity of the brain, and before sensa- 
tion shall have provided the mind with any rela- 
tive elementary facts, the self-acting principle 
may originate a labyrinth of ideas. And this 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 121 

brings me to the specific proof of the perfect con- 
stitution of the soul in the infant state, as well as 
of its capability of originating ideas as soon as the 
brain has acquired the maturity which it obtains 
in early childhood, and independently of any 
knowledge imparted by sensation. My proof 
will be found in examples already adduced, Mo- 
zart, Pascal, Safford, &c., examples which seem, 
as it were, to have been ordained to aid in the 
demonstration about which I am employed. In 
these instances there had been only the most 
slender antecedent, relative knowledge acquired 
through the medium of the senses, but the soul 
itself originated its own vast attainments, carried 
them into a variety of practical applications with- 
out the instrumentality of foreign aid, and to an 
extent where erudition, with all the appliances of 
sense, falls far short of equal achievements. % 

Now it cannot be doubted, that, in all onr rea- 
soning and conclusions, we must take the facts as 
we find them ; and, throughout the range of in- 
tellectual and instinctive manifestations, we meet 
with nothing that conflicts with the laws or with 
other phenomena of living beings. Peculiarities 
are necessarily attendant upon the operations of 
mind and instinct ; and we may be surprised on- 
ly that principles so endowed do not manifest a 



122 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

greater independence of organic structure, espe 
cially the rational principle. Such would be the 
natural conclusions of the limited apprehension of 
man, when he regards the mind, in all its highest 
purposes, as acting for itself and without refe- 
rence to the uses of the body. But, when he 
duly considers all the surrounding facts, the anal- 
ogies of Nature, Unity of Design, &c, he is pre- 
pared to find the self-acting principle, though 
existing for itself , so connected with organized 
structure that it shall receive from that structure 
important contributions to its own great final 
causes, and simultaneously, and in mutual har- 
mony, subserve some of the uses of its physical 
abode. 

May it not also be well to inquire into what is 
meant by ideas, and whether there have been any 
definite conception of their nature, and by ascer- 
taining the facts, thus show that the earliest ac- 
quirements through the instrumentality of the 
senses completely demonstrate the self-acting, 
and originating nature of mind ; while it is dis- 
tinguished, at its very dawning, from the instinc- 
tive principle, by the characteristic of forming 
ideas of the nature of objects ? This inquiry, 
like much of the rest, belongs alone to the physi- 
ologist. How, then, does sensation give rise to 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 123 

what are recognised as ideas by reason ? The 
impressions transmitted to the brain through the 
organs of sense do not -certainly constitute the 
ideas, as is generally supposed, and, according to 
my demonstration, the impressions made upon 
the brain cannot, by any physical or chemical in- 
fluences upon the organ, elicit the ideas from the 
organ itself. The impressions, therefore, must, of 
necessity, call into action a principle by which 
the ideas are alone formed ; from which it ap- 
pears that the process, by which the mind seizes 
and appropriates impressions transmitted through 
the organs of sense, is similar to that by which 
it multiplies or originates ideas. It is the soul, 
therefore, which essentially does all the work, 
while, in respect to ideas of sensation, external 
objects only supply the materials. This is enough 
for my purposes ; and it will be as vain to inquire 
into the modus operandi of the mind in its ab- 
stract operations, or in its perception of external 
objects, or how impressions are made upon the 
nerves of sense, or what their nature, or how 
they are transmitted by the nerves to the brain, 
or how they call the mind or instinct into action, 
as to interrogate the modus operandi of Creative 
Energy. 

Now, therefore, from all the demonstrations 



124 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

hitherto made, and the coincidence among them, 
must I not irresistibly draw the conclusion that, 
inasmuch as the early maturity of instinct, and 
the whole compass of its final cause, are designed 
for the exigencies of organic life, however much 
it may be rendered subservient to sensual gratifi- 
cation, so, on the other hand, the absence of all 
corresponding indications of instinct in the early 
stages of man, their correspondence with the op- 
erations of reason in all their subsequent display, 
and, above all, the entire quiescence of the soul 
in all its higher acts of intellection till the brain, 
and the whole mechanism of animal life, are so 
developed and matured as to render the opera- 
tions of reason and the acquisition of knowledge 
of any practical use, evince the predestination of 
the soul for totally different purposes from the 
objects of instinct, and an independence of con- 
stitution and a final destination beyond the cor- 
poreal medium through the instrumentality of 
which its primary knowledge is obtained ? 

To such conclusions the evidence of anatomi- 
cal and physiological facts has successively led: 
nor have I any doubt, that others will see in this 
demonstration that man is only an animal in his 
physical being ; that in mind he is far less allied 
to the things of the earth than he is to their Au- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 125 

thor ; and will realize a harmony with their own 
conceptions, that the soul and instinctive principle 
possess relations to the brain so far different as 
implied by the ultimate existence of one in an ab- 
stract condition, while the other shares the fate of 
organic life. They will see, I say, in the proof I 
have offered, a new ground of belief in the im- 
mortality of the soul, and of the perishable nature 
of instinct. And if this be so, they will see in 
my premises and conclusions, a contradistinction 
between God and Nature, and what is equivalent 
to a demonstration of the existence of a Creative 
Spirit in which the soul of man can have had its 
origin alone. And coming to other details in 
relation to man, they will see in the Mosaic decla- 
ration that " The Lord God formed man of the 
dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos- 
trils the breath of life, and man became a living 
soul" the inspiration of Him who "created man 
in His own image," and repose with equal confi- 
dence in the assurance that although "The dust 
shall return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it? They will abide 
in the emphatic distinctions between the dust, the 
breath, and the soul, and regard the spirit as a 
special gift, a new creation, and the body and 
the breath as referring to materials already in be- 



126 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ing, and which were designed, in their organic 
state, to connect the spiritual part with the mate- 
rial world. They will also see in the exclusion 
of the analogous principle in animals and the 
limitation of the statements to the soul of man, 
what is the ultimate destiny of instinct. Or, if 
what is thus so clearly implied be not within the 
ready apprehension of all, they will find it en- 
forced in the unequivocal statement that — (l Man 
that is in honor, and under standeth not, is like 
the beasts that per ish ; " where, in the figurative 
parallel between the neglect to exercise reason 
and the operations of instinct, a broad distinction 
between them is drawn ;* and where, also, in the 
specific affirmation relative to brutes, the immor- 
tality of the soul and the perishable nature of in- 
stinct are clearly indicated.! Nor can they fail 
to observe, that the foregoing revelations must be 
taken as a whole, and that the admission of one 
of their parts necessarily involves that of the 
others ; nor can it be mistaken that the anatomi- 



* Again, — " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mas- 
ter's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people do not consider." 

f Again, — " Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth up' 
ward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the 
earth?" Eccl. iii., 21. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 127 

cal and physiological demonstration sustains, as 
far as it goes, what is thus revealed.* 

Hence it follows, if Revelation be received as 
to the immortality of the soul and the death of 
nstinct, it must be received, also, as revealing a 
fundamental distinction between them, and should 
operate as a perfect barrier with all, who uphold 
the Scriptures, against the common prejudice of 
identifying instinct with reason, as confounding 
the revealed distinction, and therefore promoting 
infidelity in its aim at materialism and annihila- 



* Although not immediately relative to my subject, I may also 
say that, if the foregoing citations be allowed to rest on Divine 
Authority, the same literal construction must be given to the 
equally specific statements which distinguish so remarkably the 
whole Mosaic Record of Creation, and which admonish us to look 
for the import of words in their connection with each other, and 
with the objects of their author, whose context is the true diction- 
ary of his thoughts, and to pause at the " medals of the rocks," 
and other geological discoveries, as being possibly susceptible of 
interpretations that shall not obliterate the seal which the Creator 
has impressed upon the Narrative of His works ; although in thus 
saying, it must be allowed that the facts which may be disclosed 
in geology can be reconciled to the most obvious import of Reve- 
lation only through the principles which science has established. 
Assumptions in opposition to the laws of Nature, or forcing Crea- 
tive Energy into conflict with those laws, for the purpose of meet- 
ing the exigencies of apparent contradictions of Revelation, have 
always contributed to the strength of the adversary, however much 
the same laws may have been violated in speculative geology. 



128 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tion. That fundamental distinction, indeed, is 
very forcibly declared in the account which is 
given of the Creation of man and animals, and 
the affinity of the soul to its Author as clear- 
ly announced. However familiar may be the 
Narrative which sets forth the Beginning of all 
things, the specific statements to which I refer 
must be presented in immediate connection with 
my subject, that the language may be duly con- 
sidered and its proper import attentively examin- 
ed. Thus— 

" And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living 
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and 
beast of the earth after his kind ; and it was so. 

" And God made the beast of the earth after h s kind, 
and cattle after their kind, and everything that creep- 
eth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it 
was good. 

" And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of 
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth. 

" So God created man in His own image, in the im- 
age of God created He him ; male and female created 
He them. 

" And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be 
fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sub- 
due it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that 
moveth upon the earth." 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 129 

It would be mere tautology to attempt a plainer 
interpretation of what is revealed in respect to the 
Creation of man than is conveyed by the [Narra- 
tive itself. But as some commentators esteemed 
ingenious have assumed that the soul is not a dis- 
tinct creation, but only a part of Deity Himself, 
and, as it would follow upon our premises that 
instinct must observe the same rule, I shall in- 
troduce what I have said on a former occasion 
where I have availed myself, incidentally and as 
a correlative aid only, of a statement in Scripture 
to corroborate my proof of a distinct creation of 
the principle of life, in opposition to the numer- 
ous physiologists who deny the existence of any 
such principle. It will be seen that the language 
is very explicit, and, when taken in connection 
with the foregoing extracts, which distinguish 
organic life from the soul, the declaration as to 
the distinct creation of both becomes very em- 
phatic, In my former attempt, I was employed 
in showing that the revealed statement did not 
relate alone to the soul, and now it is my object 
to show that it does not relate alone to life, by 
which I hope to be able to meet both classes of 
the adversary. Thus, in the Medical and Phy- 
siological Commentaries I have said that — 
u Addressing ourselves to those who strictly 



130 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

believe with us in the Mosaic history, we think 
we may find in Revelation some proof that even 
the forces of life are unique and have no types 
in any other department of nature. We premise, 
however, that we have no belief that any knowl- 
edge has been imparted by Scripture in relation 
to special matters of science ; but that much may 
be inferred from the account of Creation as to the 
nature of the forces by which living matter is 
governed. On looking, then, at the account 
given by Moses, we find a very extraordinary 
and specific description of the manner in which 
man was brought into existence, and which dis- 
tinguishes his Creation from that of inorganic 
matter. 'And the Lord God formed man out 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and man became a 
living soul.' 

" Here was no agency of the chemical or physi- 
cal powers. The whole plan, also, was perfectly 
distinct from that of inorganic matter. The fabric 
of the new being had no analogies with the for- 
mer, and his phenomena were all distinct and 
without a semblance to anything that existed be- 
fore the beginning of vegetable life. This, in 
itself, supplies an irresistible proof that new forces 
(or the same as designed for animals and vegeta- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 131 

bles,) were created for the government of his 
organization, and to constitute the essence of his 
life. But, as if to convey a full and distinct im- 
pression that man is not the creature of the physi- 
cal forces, nor amenable to their operation, the in- 
spired writer, after informing us that all the varie- 
ties of organization were direct and specific acts of 
God, and thus contradistinguishing organic from 
inorganic matter, proceeds to state the manner in 
which life was imparted to the miraculous fabric 
of man : — ' He breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, and man became a living soul.' Now, it 
cannot be philosophically contended that this act 
relates alone to the soul of man ; for, in the first 
place, the annunciation refers as well to life, in 
its ordinary acceptation, as to the soul. The ori- 
ginal language imports a distinction which clearly 
substantiates the foregoing construction, and leaves 
no room for cavil. 

'' In assuming Scripture, therefore, as a ground of 
argument, it is manifest that man was completed 
in his structure without life before he became en- 
dowed with a soul * and that the act which created 



* This, and its analogies, are the only instances in which it can 
be said that the Act of Creating did not involve the simultaneous 
production of the forces by which matter is governed. The whole 
work of Creation was the direct result of Creative Energy, and 



132 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

his soul, bestowed also, the vital force. One ap- 
pears to be as much a new creation, distinct from 
the forces of dead matter, as the other. When 
man was already perfected in his structure, he 
was without life. But by the act of breathing in- 
to his nostrils, his peculiar physical life and his 
soul were simultaneously created. And how per- 
fectly in harmony is all this with the exit of mam 
His soul and the vital force leave the corporeal 
frame simultaneously ; nor will either be restored 
but by another act of Creative Energy. 

11 But again, it cannot be said that the soul itself 
constitutes the life of man, — leaving out all phy- 

therefore not connected by any analogies with the subsequent pro* 
cesses of Nature excepting as it instituted those processes. 
Throughout the Mosaic account, the plan of Creation is repre- 
sented as progressive in all things. The several Acts were suc- 
cessive steps, both as to the earth and living beings. Each must 
be regarded as complete in itself. The Creation of matter and its 
endowment with special properties was one step ; the formation 
of the body another ; and then followed the grand Creation of 
organic life, the soul and instinct, which were s therefore, super- 
added principles. In all these we see a forcible consistency with 
the statements as to the distinct Creation of light, of the firma- 
ment or atmosphere, &c. This harmonious order of events, to- 
gether with its correspondence with Unity of Design, are an 
internal proof of the Divine Origin of the Record. But it is only 
an example of a profusion of similar proof with which the first 
Chapter of Genesis is urged upon our faith. — See Note at the end 
<of this Essav. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 133 

siological facts, — since brute animals and plants 
have as much the specific force of life as man, — 
and since, also, reason and Revelation enforce the 
belief that animals and plants have no soul. 

"But it is objected, perhaps, that plants and ani- 
mals were created antecedently to man, and that 
we have no such account of the creation of the 
same vital force which equally appertains to ani- 
mals and plants ; though we think, in a modified 
state as it respects the latter. We grant the objec- 
tion is apparently reasonable ; and could it not be 
obviated, it would affect the validity of our argu- 
ment. But let us try. In the first place, all will 
admit that the expression of 'breathing into the 
nostrils of man' is probably figurative, and intend- 
ed only to imply a perfectly specific act of crea- 
tion, — that nothing analogous to the creation of the 
vital force and the soul had been performed till 
animated matter was created. The inspired wri- 
ter, however, chose- the most intelligible and em- 
phatic mode of conveying the information, — since 
nothing is so familiar to man as that he lives 
especially by breathing. And this, also, is ano- 
ther proof to our mind, that the inspired writer 
intended to be fully understood, and in that most 
obvious sense which reason dictates. He was 
speaking to the ignorant, as well as to the man of 



134 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

science, and upon a subject about which all man- 
kind are intensely interested. So, also, God said, 
'Let us make man', because this familiar lan- 
guage is natural to man, and adapts the subject 
better to his apprehension. For a like reason, 
also, we are told that the sun stood still at the 
command of Joshua ; and even in these astronom- 
ical days, we continue to speak of his rising and 
setting. And yet such is the consistency of man, 
the miracle has been denied, because science has 
discovered that the sun is always at a stand. 
Even now, should the earth's rotation cease, the ex- 
pression of Joshua would still prevail. Whatever 
is figurative is plain, and is designed to aid the 
understanding, however it may be warped to the 
purposes of sophistry. The manner, therefore, 
in which the creation of man is announced, is 
clearly intended to contradistinguish the materi- 
als which compose his structure from the princi- 
ples which animate it. His lifeless body was 
made of the earth ; his vital and mental princi- 
ples proceeded, as it were, in a more direct man- 
ner from the Almighty Himself. Or, in matter 
of fact, the language implies a higher work in 
Creation in the latter than the former case ; and 
hence, again, the most intelligible mode of con- 
veying the latter knowledge was after the manner 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 135 

of man. Solomon understood the subject in this 
way, when he said — 'Then shall the dust return 
to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return 
unto God who gave it.' 

" Lucid brevity, also, is a sublime characteristic 
of the account of Creation. It was enough that 
the account of man's creation should be fully sta- 
ted, to enable the greatest skeptic to understand 
that the same life which appertains to animals 
and vegetables was created in the same way. 
Man was taken as an example of information on 
this subject, being the most perfect of created or- 
ganization. The analogies amongst all their vital 
phenomena, and the equal disappearance of those 
phenomena after death, are so perfectly plain, 
that none can doubt the identity of the forces up- 
on which they depend, (especially amongst, ani- 
mals,) or that they came into existence by analo- 
gous acts of their Creator. But we have, how- 
ever, in relation to brute animals, exactly the 
same account of their formation out of the earth 
as in the case of man, the inspired writer seem- 
ing little disposed to leave any ground to the un- 
believer. It is true, there is nothing said, as in 
the case of man, as to the successive steps ob- 
served in their creation. But it is just so in re- 
spect to woman, of whose creation there is no- 



136 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

thing said in the way of repetition ; the general 
plan having been indicated in the account of 
man. It is said, however, that she was made out 
of a rib of man, as this was a distinct circum- 
stance, and illustrates very emphatically the rela- 
tion which the sexes bear to each other. Man is 
also connected with animals by very many close 
analogies. 

"Even in respect to the vegetable kingdom, a 
remarkable analogy prevails. Moses affirms the 
creation of ' every plant of the field before it was 
in' the earth, and every herb of the field, before it 
grew ; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain 
upon the earth, and there was not a man to till 
the ground.' 

" We have said that man (and animals also) 
was at first an inanimate apparatus. But had the 
forces of inorganic matter been adequate to carry 
on the operations of organized matter, man would 
have been a living body before the act of ' breath- 
ing into his nostrils,' or, in language divested of 
a highly expressive metaphor, before the act of 
creating his living essence. The physical forces, 
already existing, would not have been created 
anow for the special use of organized matter. 
This reasoning is only in conformity with the 
admitted fact, that the Almighty does nothing su- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 137 

perflnous, — nothing that is useless. The vital 
force of man, then, came into existence with his 
soul, as did that of animals along with instinct. 
And pursuing the descending analogy, we come 
to simple organic life, as manifested in the vege- 
table world." 

So far the Author's Commentaries ; and it will 
be seen that the argument is as specifically appli- 
cable to the soul as to organic life. 

From what has now been said, it will readily 
occur to those who are acquainted with physiolo- 
gy, that I might draw upon the phenomena and 
laws of sympathy, in their connection with the 
nervous power, for many other analogies in far- 
ther confirmation of my inductions as to the soul 
and instinctive principle. If, also, the almost 
endless series of diversified facts, which are sup- 
plied by this astonishing function of the nervous 
system, be utterly insusceptible of explanation by 
any of the laws or analogies known in physics, 
how vain must be the attempt to refer the opera- 
tions, or the phenomena, of the soul or instinct 
to the laws, which rule in the inorganic world.* 
Again, therefore, I ask the chemist, and the phy- 
sical philosopher of life, to explain the mechan- 

* See Institutes of Medicine, $ 222— 233 f ; 452, 453 ; 500. 



138 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ism and the laws of sympathy by the application 
of any principle in physics or chemistry. Let 
the chemist, I say, consider, that in every process 
of remote sympathy there are involved very di- 
verse yet very precise effects, and that he must 
have one species of chemical change for the 
transmission of impressions through the sensitive 
nerves to the nervous centres ; another for the 
impressions exerted upon those centres ; another 
for the reflection of the influences through the 
excito-motory nerves ; and yet another for the ef- 
fects exerted at the ultimate destination of the 
amazing round of never-ending influences, as in- 
dispensable to the process of respiration alone; 
and coming to morbid states, there must be ano- 
ther series of chemical changes, conforming, re- 
spectively, to the nature of every morbid influ- 
ence and product. Take any single attribute of 
the nervous system, and we shall find it as re- 
markably distinguished from all things else as is 
the mental principle. The power which apper- 
tains to that system, and presides over the whole 
life of animals, is just as unique in all its opera- 
tions. The distinction alone, in various aspects, 
between the condition of the sensitive nerves, 
and those which are appropriate to the motor in- 
fluence, — those which convey impressions to the 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 139 

central parts, and those which transmit them to 
all parts of the organization, to the organic struc- 
ture of the fountain itself, — those, I say, which 
serve to awaken the mind, or to stamp on the 
nervous centres, with all the precision of thought, 
an inconceivable variety of influences which are 
unceasingly in progress in every other part, but 
with no other appreciable result than the move- 
ments which follow in all the organic constitu- 
tion, contrasted with the totally distinct preroga- 
tive of those nerves, and those fibres of com- 
pound nerves, which give rise to the distant 
movements and changes, — place, at an unutter- 
able distance, all analogy with the recognized 
imponderable substances, and with every other 
agent or power in the inorganic kingdom. Nor 
can we be surprised at the exquisite functions of 
the nervous power and sensibility as performed 
through the nervous system, when it is consid- 
ered that the same system is the medium of all 
the rational, voluntary, and instinctive acts, which 
transcend, immensely, any of those vital influen- 
ces which I have set forth as its characteristics, 
and which harmonize, so wonderfully, with the 
rational and instinctive manifestations. And, if 
we bring the mind into its relations with the ner- 
vous svstem, what can task the understanding 



140 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

more than the step in the process of intellection 
as connected with the functions of sense; begin- 
ning with light and its properties, or with the 
odor which none but the dog can discern, distin- 
guishing that which is impressed upon the foot- 
steps of his master, or of a savage foe, from that 
of all other men, and that upon the track of one 
animal from all other animals, or the abstractions 
that convey to the mind all the varieties in taste, 
or the modified undulations of air which render 
so distinct from each other all the gradations in 
sound from the iEolian harp to the braying of a 
jackass; the impressions of each undulation of 
light — seven hundred billions of the violet ray, 
and only less for all the rest, in a second of time 
— and of incalculable numbers in respect to the 
air; the impressions, I say, of each undulation, 
or of the indefinable odor, upon the extremi- 
ties of the nerves of sense, one alone upon the 
eye, another alone upon the ear, and another up- 
on the nose alone ; the transmission of these im- 
pressions along the trunks of the nerves to their 
other extremities in the brain ; their excitement 
of the brain, and the simultaneous operation of 
reason or of instinct, by which the nature of the 
primary impressions is discerned, and the exter- 
nal objects realized by the inward immaterial 



TftE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 141 

agent according to their real material existence?* 
And if we now carry this philosophy one step far- 
ther, we shall be in the midst of that profound 
labyrinth of designs where the impressions upon 
all the senses meet harmoniously together, — often 
simultaneously from a common source, as in the 
effects of gunpowder, on the discharge of a gun, 
upon every sense, when each impression trans- 
mitted to the brain confirms the report of the oth- 
ers through that immaterial principle which recog- 
nizes the exact amount, individually, or any dis- 
crepance of the whole. Or, through what other 
imaginable principle can it be ; that sounds, odors, 
&c, are unnoticed when we are intently engaged 
on other subjects, yet exert their full force on the 
instant that the abstract occupation ceases ? Or 
why, if physical results be alone the source of 
sensation and perception, do not the remote 
causes produce the same effects in the former as 
in the latter case ?f I say the inward immaterial 

* " No language," says Dr. Fordyce, "has ever yet become so 
copious as to express the varieties in the senses. 5 ' See Author's 
Institutes of Medicine, § 450, 451. 

t As the chemical interpretation of the various sensations has 
become incorporated with physiological science, I may here refer 
the reader who is disposed to investigate the subject to an attempt 
of this nature in the Institutes of Medicine,]? 90 — 95. I may 

7* 



142 TME SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

agent, for I cannot doubt that the substance on 
which instinctive actions depend is immaterial. It 
is the first link in the great chain of spiritual ex- 
farther add, also, that the only exposition of the process which has 
been made is relative to vision, while the other functions of sense 
are left to be expounded by that philosophy. But it will be readi- 
ly seen (hat each of the senses is distinguished by such peculiari- 
ties in the subsidiary mechanism and their phys'cal agents, that 
the chemical philosophy of vision is entirely inapplicable to either 
of the rest, while the doctrine which assumes the dependence of 
vision upon the union of oxygen with some combustible element 
of the retina, or any other chemical rationale, is contradicted by 
the strict analogies which subsist between seeing, smehing, hear- 
ing, tasting, and feeling. The nerves and nervous centres are the 
organs in all the cases, and a great common principle is the phy- 
siological basis of the whole. That principle involves what are 
denominated sensibility, sensation, and perception. Any doctrine, 
therefore, of the physiology of vision, in its essential nature, must 
be equally applicable to all other sensations. 

Admitting, therefore, the assumption that external agents give 
rise to vision through the supposed chemical influences upon the 
retina, the philosophy should be the same for all the senses, and in 
conformity with what is known in chemistry of the coincidence of 
causes for coincident results. Now, in the case of vision, light is 
the supposed agent which affects the supposed chemical changes 
in the retina, and, therefore, something at least analogous to light 
shou-d start the chemical changes in the expanded olfictory, au- 
ditory, and other nerves which are the organs of these other sensa- 
tions that are so nearly allied to vision. But there is no resem- 
blance, in their nature, between light, and all those volatile sub- 
stances which impress the sensation of smeUing, or those intrinsic 
causes which produce all the varieties of tasting, or the endless 
impressions which result in as many modifications of feeling, or 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 143 

istences ; and agreeably to the law of ascending 
analogies, the manifestations of a spiritual essence 
in animals should be very low ; but it is remarka- 
bly to my purpose, that many of the lower, where 
there are only rudiments of a brain, as the ant 
and the bee, evince the greatest stretch of in- 

the intonations which are produced by the undulations of the at- 
mosphere. 

But that is not all ; for here, as everywhere else in organic 
chemistry, the philosophy cannot proceed without a multiplicity 
of causes, and these of the most incongruous nature. Such chem- 
ists as allow the existence of a thinking principle, call in the aid 
of that. This is admissible, and, at least, gives dignity to the 
speculation. Bat it is also assumed that, in seeing, the light, or 
its supposed undulations, are actually transmitted to the brain ; 
thus leaving the assumed oxydation of the retina, or other sup- 
posed chemical change exerted upon that organ, without any 
conceivable use. But, as like results require like causes, so must 
the undulations of the air that give rise to hearing, the sapid vir- 
tues which impress the tongue, the various odors which are recog- 
nised through the olfactory nerve, the heat or the cold, the tickling 
or the pinching, or whatever may affect the sense of feeling, not 
only exert an oxydizing influence upon the expanded nerves in all 
the cases, but each of the causes must be regarded as a substantial 
agent, and equally with light transmitted to the nervous centres. 

The confusion of causes now mentioned, independently of their 
want of consistency, should, in itself, be fatal to any hypothesis 
which professes to interpret the simple problems of Nature. But 
the chemist often goes much farther with this multiplication of 
causes, and is coerced to the admission of "a vital force," "a vital 
principle," though always with him resolvable into chemical force. 
But he employs the term, gives it significance in the emergencies 



144 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

stinct.* There are no violent transitions in na- 
ture. The material existences, especially the or- 
ganic, pass gradually, as it were, into each other. 
And so, it can not be doubted, it is with the spi- 
ritual, from brute to man, from man to angels, 
from angels to God. 

" Of system? possible, if 'tis confessed 
That wisdom infinite must form the best, 
Where all must fill or not coherent be, 
And ail that ri-es, rise in due degree ; 
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, 
There must be somewhere such a rank as man ; 
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) 
Is only this, if God has placed him wrong ] " 



of life, and assigns the nerves as its conductors. Such is the case 
with Liebig, and his powerful school. (See Institutes of Medi- 
cine, p. 152 — 178) But even this confusion of causes would be 
deficient without that element whose demonstrations astonish the 
mind as well as the senses ; and, accordingly, the electric fluid, 
which has been regarded by many as identical with the nervous 
power, but clearly shown by others to have no other agency in 
organic processes than as a vital stimulus, is incorporated by the 
chemist among the forces essential not only to vision, and all other 
results of organic processes, but to thought itself. (See f-xamina- 
tion of the supposed identity of galvanism and the nervous power 
in Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 1, pp. 63 — 67, 
107—119.) 

* " There be four things which be little upon the earth, but 
they are exceedingly wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet 
they prepare their meat in the summer : The conies are but a fee- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 145 

The most exalted have been sometimes embodied 
with matter, clothed in onr'own corporeal frame. 
Or was there no spirit there? Nothing but ma- 
terial eliminations of mind from their blood, or a 
product of a conflagration of the elements of the 
brain ? For so you must have it, and so it is 
meant, where the same mental phenomena are so 
interpreted in man. Nay, more : so complete is 
the analogy between the acts of ratiocination and 
those of the Creator, as seen in the humble de- 
signs which are devised and executed by man, it 
would unavoidably follow upon the doctrines in 
materialism, (if it admit a Creative Power,) that 
all the designs of the Almighty Being were equal- 
ly the result of chemical or organic processes ! 

The induction as to the immateriality of in- 
stinct is farther and forcibly shown by my prem- 
ises in relation to mind, and the analogies be- 
tween mind and instinct. But the extinction of 
anything, as of instinct, will not affect the princi- 
ple of analogy in relation to existences. We 
know nothing of the order of Providence, (except- 
ing what is revealed,) after the system of ascend- 

ble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks: The locusts 
have no king, yet go ihey forth all of them by bands : The spider 
taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." Proverbs, 
xxx., 24—28. 



146 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ing analogies among existences is broken up ; and 
all reasoning from analogy is then at an end. 

It will have been seen that materialism, in its 
proper acceptation, and the question as to the ma- 
teriality of the soul, are distinct from each other, 
since the former denies the existence of the soul 
as a substantive agent, while the latter admits it, 
but contends for its materiality. My object has 
been to substantiate the existence, more than the 
nature of the soul as to its immateriality. But 
the proof of its immateriality has constantly at- 
tended all that I have shown of the self-acting' 
nature of the soul and instinctive principle, which 
contradistinguishes them from every known at- 
tribute of matter. Their nearest approximation, 
in the light of analogy, to what may be material, 
is to be seen in the principle of organic life : and 
here the resemblance consists in action alone.* 
But the principle of life requires the operation of 
other causes to bring it, and maintain it in sensi- 
ble action. It is impossible, therefore, to adduce 
a single phenomenon of mind or of instinct that 
bears a resemblance to the manifestations of mat- 
ter. They are perfectly contradistinguished from 



* See Author's Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 
l,p. 94—106. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 147 

each other in their most essential and fundamen- 
tal attributes, remarkably so in the self-acting 
nature of the soul and instinct; while matter is 
characterized by its inertia, its incapability of ori- 
ginating motion or action, and is utterly without 
the power of bringing other matter into existence, 
or of multiplying itself. These remarkable con- 
tradistinctions will be taken in connection with 
the variety of proof which I have offered, and I 
present their collective force as an abundant con- 
firmation of the meaning intended by the inspired 
writers in designating the thinking part of man 
as a distinct essence, by the name of spirit, and 
as immortal in its nature. And since we have 
reason to believe that the ancient writers were 
destitute of the anatomical and physiological tes- 
timony, we must yield to the conclusion that all 
their knowledge in regard to the soul was reveal- 
ed by Heaven. But, as our facts enforce the 
belief that the soul is a distinct essence, and that 
it is entirely distinct in its nature from all matter, 
and as they also confirm what is revealed, they 
become thus substantiated by the seal of Divine 
Authority, — bearing the indelible impress of spi- 
rituality and immortality. It will be readily 
seen, also, that the same reasoning is applicable 
to the authority of Scripture as to the perishable 



148 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

nature of instinct But, Scripture aside,*(for the 
whole of this subject must be met by reason it- 
self,) there is something farther which goes to 
demonstrate not only the immateriality of the self- 
acting soul, but that the doctrine of its materiali- 
ty is deeply degrading, and is only secondary to 
that of pure materialism (or the total denial of 
such an agent) in its tendencies toward infidelity. 
The proof is this, nor will it be opposed by any one 
who admits the clearest testimony supplied by the 
analogies of surrounding Nature. I mean that, 
such is manifestly the alliance between the human 
mind and the Divine Mind, if one be immaterial, 
so is the other, and vice versa. But, it is very 
questionable whether any true believer in a Be- 
ing who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipo- 
tent, entertains the supposition that He is like the 
inert matter of which He is the Author ; and as 
little, therefore, can he imagine that the rational 
soul is material. The analogies which subsist 
between the operations of mind, and the eviden- 
ces of design which abound in organic nature, 
should, indeed, be sufficiently demonstrative of 
the existence of a principle in man as substantive 
as the Almighty Being and partaking of the same 
intelligent and self-acting nature. It therefore 
becomes a matter of interest to observe how my 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 149 

demonstration borrows, by a reciprocity of proof, 
a reflected light from the " Image " in which 
man is said to have been made. 

These premises being admitted, it follows that 
immateriality is indispensable to the infinite dura- 
tion of the Almighty, and therefore that it must 
be rendered equally so to the immortality of the 
soul. Strange, indeed, that man should have 
seen in the manifestations of matter such allure- 
ments as to induce him to resist all the opposing 
phenomena of mind, and to assimilate his soul to 
the nature of those materials of his body which 
originally existed and will again exist in the 
form of gases or other mineral substances. 

I have no apprehension that my earnest convic- 
tions upon this subject, as of others in this Essay, 
will not be fully conceded ; but I am too sensible 
that error may be rendered plausible, even as fas- 
cinating as the nebular hypothesis of the solar 
system, or as the spontaneity of living beings, 
either through the impulses of ambition or un- 
chastened imagination, and too anxious for the 
truth, not to invite the most rigid scrutiny; nor 
do I wish for myself any greater indulgence than 
I yield to others. 

In respect to the nervous power, I would as lit- 
tle speculate upon its nature as upon that of the 



150 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

soul, or I may say of the nature of the most tan- 
gible matter, of either of which we know noth- 
ing but from their manifestations.* I would not 
even assume for the nervous power a place among 
the imponderables, which the* physical philoso- 
pher, upon no better evidence, unhesitatingly 
avows as the condition of light, heat, and that 
more inscrutable substance magnetism, which 
awakens no sensation, and produces no effect up- 
on organic life. The true physiologist attempts 
no problems which have no apparent relation to 
principles and laws, and which divert philosophy 
from its practical uses. It is true, he argues the 
existence of the soul, of the principle of instinct, 
of the principle of organic life, their remarkable 
attributes, their contradistinctions from each oth- 
er, and from all other agents, upon the ground of 
the physical philosopher, that he may meet the 
obtruder with his own ratiocination. He tells 
him that his premises are the same, only more 
various, distinct in their nature, and more de- 
monstrative. 

Our inquiry may be variously pursued, especial- 
ly upon the great basis of analogy. It is one of no 



* See Author's Medical and Physiological Commentaries, vol. 
1, p. 83, &c, ar.d Institutes of Medicine, § 222-2331, 234, g. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 151 

little moment at the present day, and the material- 
ists must abide their own facts and method of 
reasoning; aground, however, which nothing can 
shake when presented according to its ordination 
in Nature. In the present case, the admitted 
facts are coextensive with all animal existences, 
and they are bound together in the different races 
by close resemblances. Indeed, in each of the 
series the facts differ only by shades. The evi- 
dence here is of the strongest possible nature, not 
only on account of the universality of the facts, 
but because they are founded in the unchanging 
character of organic beings. It is the ground 
upon which mankind have stood in the great 
range of inquiry. And since the whole super- 
structure of knowledge rests greatly upon analo- 
gy, if materialism can lay its foundation here as 
it regards intellectual manifestations, or can drag 
from the inanimate world a similar basis for the 
processes of life, I shall hold myself open to any 
just conviction. But, resting, for the present, in 
the conclusions which I have now expressed, and 
anxious for their greater prevalence against a pro- 
gressive, and already wide-spread, materialism, I 
have been led into this discussion in the hope 
that it may remove some of the obscurities of the 
subject. The province of the physiologist ex- 



152 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tends beyond the mere physical relations of mat- 
ter and mind. Of these relations he is the only 
expounder. Bat it devolves upon him, also, to 
seek in the depths of physiology for the con- 
stitution of mind as distinguished from matter; 
and thus, also, contribute towards a right faith in 
a future state of being. Wherever, indeed, he 
turns his inquiries into organic nature, he sees 
in the mechanism of every part, individually and 
collectively as a harmonious whole, — in every 
function and product, separately or relatively, — 
in the properties by which they are carried on, 
and in the laws by which they are governed, the 
most perfect evidences of consummate design. It 
is the duty of the physiologist to turn all this im- 
mense weight of proof against those crude doc- 
trines of materialism, mental and medical, which 
have had their origin either in the closet of the 
speculatist, or in the laboratory of the organic 
chemist.* But while I would not identify the 

* It is usual to set forth anatomical structure, and its general 
office, alone, as forming the highest proof of design. But the uni- 
versal principles upon which vegetable and animal organization 
is founded, and the analogies throughout, the special designs of 
every part and th^ir concurrence in the production of special re- 
sults, the harmonious contribution which each receives from all 
the rest, the assemblage of the whole into one great universal de- 
sign by which the individuality of animal and organic life is con- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 153 

chemical interpretations of organic life with the 
coincident philosophy of intellection, nor with the 
doctrine of spontaneity of being-, beyond the avow- 
ed capabilities of the laboratory, it cannot be de- 
nied that the simple tampering- with organic life 
has been tributary to the bolder doctrines. And 
when it is affirmed by Liebig, and adopted by so 
many disciples, that " Physiology has sufficient- 



stituted, so that the former is founded upon the latter as an inte- 
gral part, the vast and exact variety in the physiological constitu- 
tion of every tissue and parts of tissues, and according to the na- 
ture of the specific being, with their corresponding products and 
susceptibilities to the action of physical and moral agents, the al- 
most endless and undeviating modifications of the organic pro- 
ducts of every part according to the nature of the being, the vari- 
ous and compound physiological influences which are often con- 
cerned in a common function, along with a highly complex me- 
chanism, as in respiration and vision, the exact adaptation of the 
digestive organs and fluids to the varieties of food consumed by 
different species of animals, and, especially, the vital relations of 
atmospheric air and water to every species of animal and plant 
through a wonderful variety of mechanism and stupendous laws, 
the precise adaptation of instinct to the special exigencies of orga- 
nic and animal life in the various species of animals, and, lastly, 
the involution of the laws by which each part, and the whole in 
the concerted action of all parts, are governed, forms the evidence 
by which the advocates of spontaneous generation are shown not 
only to disregard an incalculable amount of the clearest and strong- 
est evidence, but, in so doing, to betray a disposition to reject the 
Divine Author of all things. (See Institutes of Medicine, In- 
dex, articles Design, and God and Natuke. 



154. THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ly decisive grounds for the opinion, that every 
thought, every sensation, is accompanied by a 
change in the composition of the substance of the 
brain, and that every manifestation of force is the 
result of a transformation of the structure or of its 
substance," it behooves the physiologist to deny 
the existence of a single fact, or a single analogi- 
cal induction, that can give the least plausibility 
to the statement, and to hold the materialist con- 
victed till he shall have produced the "grounds" 
which are said to be " sufficiently decisive." Let 
that be done, and he who now speaks will con- 
fess his injustice, and the triumph of material- 
ism. The physiologist will retire from a field 
which he had fancied was adorned with the 
choicest designs of Heaven, but where he had 
been, through so many ages, the victim of a de- 
luded imagination. 

It has been said, that " an undevout astronomer 
is mad." But we have looked with complacency 
upon marshaling a chaos of stars into systems of 
worlds, that science might pluck a laurel from 
Heaven to give it back again to the stupendous 
philosophy of gravitation ; — and we have looked 
even with admiration upon the "nebular hypo- 
thesis." Reason has been neither shocked, nor the 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 155 

astronomer considered "mad," because, perhaps, 
there was no absolute manifestation of design in 
the orbs themselves, or only so in their motive 
power. True, indeed, there is nothing in their 
abstract condition to raise our conviction of Crea- 
tive Power beyond the evidence supplied by the 
smallest fragment of matter. But a multitude of 
worlds are seen when we mount to the stellar 
heavens upon the analogies supplied by our own 
planet. In this relative sense, a series of vast de- 
signs crowd upon enlightened reason, and he who 
is true to his reason must come to the conclusion 
that it is with every star as with the Earth, 

" Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 

Such, indeed, is the conclusion to which the as- 
tronomer is fast finding his way by his own me- 
chanical inventions, and by his supposed discovery 
that comets are among the lightest of gaseous bo- 
dies. But I waive the fanciful analogy supplied 
by the latter, and only mention it to show how 
one hypothesis becomes a groundwork for another. 
It is enough that we point to the nebulas alone, — 
to the climax of the Plutonic doctrines of Creation. 
Those nebulas, so long a liquid fire to grow into 
systems like our own, (one of which, according to 
Arago, would have occupied all space,) are now 



156 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

seen as a " powdering of stars," receding in the 
distance, pile upon pile, as if a cone stretching out 
beyond the bounds of imagination. 

Reason, the analogies of Nature, Unity of Design 
in the great plan of Creation, have had no part in 
the Astronomer's conversion from a chaotic state 
of the heavens to a symmetry of worlds. The tel- 
escope alone has dispelled his illusion ; but it has 
gained a fact which goes with all former know- 
ledge in proving, that every fabric of the human 
mind which is entitled to the appellation of a 
science is founded in consummate Design. The 
astronomer, it is true, still clings to the vestige of 
his dream, and lingers upon the fathomless abyss 
of light where myriads of stars mingle their efful- 
gence to his physical eye; but he lingers with a 
hope, which the very next step he may take in 
mechanical optics will prove to have been as 
faithless as his former visions, and will carry him 
upwards and onwards through other telescopic 
worlds, but forever bounded by the halo which 
had been the ignis fatuns of his philosophy. 

However beautiful, therefore, the nebular hypo- 
thesis of Creation, and however reluctant its sur- 
render to the glory of the Almighty, it must fall, 
and with greater precipitation than it rose ; for it 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 157 

is the astronomer himself who is demolishing the 
fabric. And with it must pass into oblivion the 
whole Plutonic scheme of the Earth's formation, 
so long an analogical basis of the nebular theory 
of the heavens ; or only remembered among those 
eighty other systems in Geology which were 
grouped under one general condemnation by the 
French Academy. 

The astronomer, however, enjoys a pretext for 
his factitious philosophy far beyond the propagan- 
dists of materialism and spontaneous generation. 
The former may see in matter and its laws a Crea- 
tive Power, and imagine, in opposition to all that 
is known of secondary causes, that He, who " spake 
and it was done," who tells us that, " Thus the 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them," did, never theless, consign His cha- 
otic work, with all its ultimate designs as a sym- 
metrical whole, and in its vast and critical rela- 
tions to life, to the operation of the laws impressed 
upon it. He may " see gods in clouds and hear 
them in the wind." His inquiry may stop there ; 
and overlooking all final causes, he may confound 
the agencies of matter with Creative Energy. But 
not so with the physiologist ; for the organic be- 
ing, whether in reason, instinct, organization, func- 



158 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

tions, properties, laws, is the embodiment of Infi- 
nite Wisdom.* 



* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, § 353—361. The prop- 
erties and forces which are impressed upon matter, and the laws 
which they obey, have never been known to bring any design into 
being. On the contrary, they are ultimately and universally de- 
structive of all elementary combinations, and, therefore, of the de- 
signs into which they may have been associated. But the Crea- 
tor, having formed the designs, substituted for his Creative Ener- 
gy the special laws by which they have been carried on. The 
rudiments of organic beings have been perpetuated in connection 
with the properties of life, and the laws impressed upon them, 
since they came from the hands of the Creator, and are the pres- 
ent source of all animated beings. If we deny this, we must 
equally deny the Creation of matter. (See Institutes, &c, as to 
the supposed eyeless fish of the Kentucky cave, § 74.) The laws, 
however, ean operate only while the constituent parts of the de- 
signs exist. This is strikingly manifest in the living being. Here 
lies the great error of the closet sppculatist. Hence the sophisty 
of the argument which assumes the existing laws that preside 
over the works of Design as having evolved those designs out of 
chaotic matter. They can have no other operation, without the 
mechanical design itself, than what is seen of their destructive ef- 
fects in the mineral kingdom ; and what should confound the 
sophist is the fact that the moment the principle of life, the pecu- 
liar force which truly carries on the functions of organic mechan- 
ism, becomes extinct, those other forces, to which he ascribes the 
evolution from the merest matter of all the wonderful designs on 
earth and in the heavens, speedily lay waste the entire organic 
fabric, and crumble it into its simple elements. The whole ten- 
dency of the physical and chemical forces impressed upon matter 
is to destroy, not to create or improve. (See Institutes of Medi- 
cine, § 360.) Even gravitation, would bring worlds into contact 
without the centrifugal force ; and this force as appertaining tp 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 159 

comets is proof of its origin in Design throughout the systems 
which obey its laws. All physical agents, also, as light, heat 
&c, contribute alike destructive influences upon inanimate com- 
pounds of an organic or inorganic nature. But the living com- 
pound resists their action as completely as it does those of the 
chemical properties which are impressed upon the elements of 
which the living being is composed. But, although the destruc- 
tive forces which are impressed upon matter are held in subjection 
by the principle of life, and which effects combinations in direct 
opposition to them, the extraneous physical agents, like light, heat, 
oxygen gas, &c, develop the energies of life in the seed and egg, 
and are its indispensable stimuli at every instant after the devel- 
opment of the living fabric begins. But, as soon as the resisting 
cause is withdrawn, they turn with destructive effect upon the fa- 
bric which they had been instrumental in rearing up, and pour 
their united force upon those chemical tendencies which were im- 
pressed upon the simple elements, and through whose combined 
agency " the dust returns to the earth as it was." 

Now let us see how far the statements of Scripture agree with 
what is manifestly fundamental in Nature. We are told, for ex- 
ample, that man and beast were created entire out of the earth ; 
but had it been said that the materials of the earth organized 
themselves into living beings, the Narrative would be rejected as 
an imposture. Nay, more : had it been affirmed that man was 
created in the condition of an infant, and thus left to grow up to 
maturity under the influence of the laws which actually govern 
his organization, the statement would be unanimously pronounced 
absurd, even by such advocates of spontaneous generation as are 
quoted at pages 10 — 20. The infant, without a ray of instinct, 
(pages 93, 105,) destitute of volition and muscular power, the 
personification of Helplessness, and for years dependent on ma- 
turer age, growing up to manhood under physical circumstances 
alone ! Yet is this doctrine extensively propagated through the 
delusion that " the Creator endowed certain forms of inorganic 
matter with the properties requisite to enable them to combine, 



160 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

at a fitting season, into the human organism." Glaring as 
the absurdity is, in relation to man, especially, it seems not to 
have been considered in the haste to represent " the Organic Cre- 
ation as the result, not of any immediate or personal exertion of 
the Deity, but of natural laics which are expressions of his will." 
(Page 15, note.) How much more absurd, therefore, the opinion 
of spontaneity of being which requires the elements to organize 
themselves and to conduct the whole process of development and 
growth, till the being shall have obtained sufficient maturity of 
mind and body to aid in the acquisition of nutritive matter which 
had, up to that stage of existence, devolved upon the elements 
themselves and the compounds into which they had united? (See 
page 10 — 20.) Were there nothing beside to substantiate the 
Revelation of Heaven, the proof which is offered by the infancy 
of man, in being conclusive as to his own origin, would extend 
itself to every other statement in the Mosaic Record. 

Since, therefore, it is so palpably manifest that man must have 
been brought into existence with a maturity of both mind and body 
that should qualify him for self-preservation, and since, also, it has 
never been surmised that the spontaneity of living beings began 
otherwise than with the elements of matter, or at most with or- 
ganic matter in its most simple form, (pages 10 — 20,) the analogy 
which is supplied by the facts in relation to man, establishes, " in- 
ferentially ," (as the author of the Vestiges would say, page 13,) 
the literal construction of the statement as to the Creation of ani- 
mals and plants in a state of maturity. But what I have thus said 
as to the absolute exigencies of man, who has neither instinct, 
reason, or muscular ability, to guide him in early life, is as appli- 
cable to all mammiferous animals in respect to the nature of their 
early food, who would, of course, immediately perish without the 
sustenance offered by the parent. But the organization of ani- 
mals lower in the scale, (the Acarus Crossii. for example, whose 
suppositious creation by man has received no little countenance,) 
is on a par in respect to design, living functions, &c, with, that of 
man ; and whoever, therefore, admits or attempts the creation of 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 161 

such an animal, necessarily places the whole upon the ground of 
spontaneity of being. 

Again, as to my purpose relative to original Design, and the 
ultimate substitution of natural laws for Creative Energy, we do not 
read that God created even plants in the state of seeds alone, but, in 
wonderful consistency with what is affirmed of man and animals, 
we are told that He " created every plant of the field before it was 
in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew." Never- 
theless, such is the difference between the two departments of the 
organic kingdom, as to their growth and perpetuation, there would 
have been no violation of Nature or of probabilities, had it been 
said only that God created the seeds of plants and committed them 
to the earth ; and this, especially, as their whole economy of nutri- 
tion is relative to the simple elements of matter. As if, therefore, 
in the progress of human knowledge, these facts should become 
known, and Unity of Design in creating all things in a state of 
perfection might be overlooked, certain reasons are assigned for 
" creating plants before they grew." And surely they will be al- 
lowed to be very philosophical reasons. 

It may here be worth a moment's pause for the purpose of say- 
ing that numerous passages may be cited from Scripture which 
will bear no latitude of construction, and which confirm the literal 
interpretation of those statements in the first chapter of Genesis 
which have been so generally warped to meet the supposed ex- 
igencies in Geology. But, if the general outline of Creation, as 
set forth in the first chapter, be allowed to bear the impress of Di- 
vine Authority, then, also, must the details, as embraced in the 
second ; and wherever the affirmations are specific and unequivo- 
cal, Where words cannot be distorted, nor sentences admit of but 
one meaning, and that one of an absolute nature, they must be 
received in that precise acceptation. (Note at page 127.) Now 
let us look, as an example, at what is affirmed relative to the Cre- 
ation of plants, and observe how completely it contradicts the geo- 
logical hypothesis of the slow formation of the globe, and the gra- 
dual appearance of the vegetable kingdom. Thus, — 

" These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth 



162 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the 
earth and the heavens ; and every plant of the field before it was 
in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew ; for the 
Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was 
not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the 
earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." 

This statement is either exactly true or altogether false, since 
by no sophistry can it be otherwise interpreted. It is not simply 
an affirmation as to the Creation of " every plant of the field before 
it was in the earth," &c, but it is enforced by other important 
affirmations as reasons for an Act so completely abstracted from 
those laws of Nature which were subsequently to take charge of 
the perpetuation of the vegetable kingdom. It is, then, I say, 
either absolutely true, or absolutely false, that " every plant of the 
field was created before it was in the earth, and every herb of the 
field before it grew," — (a double affirmation ;) and it is, also, as 
true or false, that there had not been antecedently any "rain up- 
on the earth," and that subsequently, and for the first time, " there 
went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the 
ground." The statement, I say, is remarkable for its exactness ; 
and the affirmation as to the Creation of the vegetable kingdom 
in a state of maturity is protected against all ambiguity by its 
reiteration in the same clause, and by the assignment of the rea- 
son for anticipating the order of Nature ; while the corresponding 
Creation of man and animals was left without a reason from the 
manifest impossibility of their ever "attaining the adult state from 
the embryo condition, or even from infancy, without the Creation 
of mature progenitors. 

If this, therefore, be received as the Word of God, then, accord- 
ing to the existing order of Nature, the beginning of which is 
admitted to have taken place at the time of the first appearance 
of plants, and is farther confirmed by the statement as to the 
" mist," I say, it follows that the earth was created only a very 
short time anterior to the Creation of the Vegetable Kingdom, 
since there had been no " rain upon the earth" till plants were 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 1 G3 

brought into being, and since, also, " a mist went up," and rain 
fell immediately afterwards, according to the physical laws which 
were ordained, and intended to operate, as soon as the earth was 
created. We thus gain, also, the true meaning of the Almighty 
as to the length of the days of Creation, whose clear and oft re- 
peated and emphatic declaration is so much questioned, and not- 
withstanding, also, it forms the basis of the fourth Commandment. 
Now, if the foregoing argument be incontrovertible, as it seems 
to me, the question of truth must lie between the Sacred Statement 
and the modern fabric of Geology. There appears to be no escape 
from the alternative, and I especially and respectfully ask for it 
the attention of the Minister of Religion. That statement alone, 
if received as Divine Truth, establishes the literal interpretation 
of the entire Revelation, and is, in itself, utterly subversive of the 
present system of Theoretical Geology. The direct affirmation 
will be conclusive upon that subject, while the analogy which it 
supplies in regard to the Creation of man and animals is even 
stronger than that afforded by the latter, and from which we must 
have deduced the complete Creation of the vegetable kingdom, had 
Revelation been silent upon the subject. The analogy is, there- 
fore, of a reciprocal and forcible nature, is corroborated by Unity 
of Design and the necessity of things, by direct affirmation, and by 
the internal proof which is supplied by the reason assigned for 
Creating plants in a state of maturity. Nor must the force of the 
expression that " a mist went up and watered the ground" imme- 
diately after the Creation of plants, especially in its connection 
with the statement that no rain had fallen antecedently, and with 
that relative to the Creation of the earth and the subsequent step 
in the Creation of plants, be allowed to fail of its proper weight in 
directing our conclusions. Let it be also considered in this con- 
nection that no little confirmation of the Divine Origin of the Re- 
cord, and of its literal interpretation, is afforded by the statement 
that man and animals were created out of the materials which form 
the earth ; since the fact has been only recently ascertained by 
man, and since, also, it is one of the most improbable conjectures 
that could have been made, or that would have been received but 
from a belief in its Inspiration, either in the early dawnings of the 



164 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

human mind, or up to the time when science confirmed the state- 
ment. If it be objected that there is an apparent exception in re- 
gard to woman, especially as to a perfect Unity of Design, and 
that more should have been said as to the Creation of plants, I 
would ask the objector to examine my construction of this subject 
at page 135. Is there not, also, something remarkable in the affirm- 
ation that the whole animal and vegetable Kingdom were created 
in a state of maturity, when contrasted with the doctrine of spon- 
taneous generation as advocated at this enlightened age ; espe- 
cially as a little reflection will assure every mind that man, and 
all mammiferous animals, and all unfledged birds, could not have 
been otherwise perpetuated 1 

The demonstration which I have now made appears, therefore, 
to prove the literal meaning of all the statements recorded in the 
first and second chapters of Genesis ; while the reflecting n ind 
cannot avoid the conclusion that the Creation of the vegetable 
Kingdom, which was designed entirely for the subsistence of the 
animal, was followed immediately by the creation of the latter, as 
set forth by the Word of God, and as enforced by all that is known 
of His Designs, which are perfected altogether, and not in isolated 
parts. Least of all should it be entertained that He brought the 
animal and vegetable tribes into existence in fragmentary portions. 
Before such imputations, along with " remodelings of the globed 
" extinctions" of a world of living beings and successive " crea- 
tions" of new ones, " spontaneity of organic nature," " a reign of 
insects," " reign of serpents," " reign of fishes," " the reign of 
mastodons which immediately preceded the reign of man," and 
other analogous things which strike at the imagination, be alleged 
upon geological grounds against the Word, and the perfection of 
the Works of God, it would be better to consider more maturely 
whether the " facts with which geology has lately been enriched" 
may not be consistent with the Sacred Narrative. 

Let us next admire the manner in which it is stated, (and ac- 
cording to the very best philosophy,) that the Great Author of 
plants "before they grew," substituted certain forces and laws for 
His Creative Energy, to preside over and perpetuate the Designs 
which He had brought into being in a perfect state. After having 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 165 

informed us of the Creation of plants, and of the reasons for so 
doing, we are told that those reasons soon ceased to operate, and 
that vegetation was committed to the forces and laws impressed 
upon the Designs which had been brought into existence. Philo- 
sophy anticipates the Narrative in supposing the completion of 
Design by starting vegetation according to the peculiar laws which 
it was destined to observe. All its demands are satisfied by the 
declaration that, — " The Lord God planted a garden eastward in 
Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out 
of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is 
pleasant to the sight, and good for food." This detail refers to 
the general statement ; and if we now turn to that, we shall find 
that the Almighty, while creating the vegetable kingdom, provided 
for its perpetuation according to the laws which it was destined to 
observe. Thus, — " And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, 
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his 
kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth." 

Philosophy is thus harmoniously met by a very remarkable 
exposition of consistency of Design in respect to the Creation 
of plants in their special characteristics, and in their relation to 
the other events ; and the same principle will be found to be true 
in respect to animals. All this, however, and much more of the 
same nature, I shall set forth more critically at a convenient 
season. 

The foregoing circumstantial order of events, which are related 
in the chapter of details, brings to our notice the comprehensive 
statement as embraced in the general account, and where, it will 
be seen, a very philosophical distinction is made as to the modes 
in which plants and animals were destined for multiplication. 
Thus, of the former : — " And God said, Let the earth bring forth 
grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after 
his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth ; and it was so." 

No methodical mind can want assistance in the farther applica- 
tion of the great Principle to all that is revealed in the Sacred 
Record, or to the summary declaration that, — " Thus the heavens 
and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." 
8* 



166 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

" The Chosen People " received these declarations in the spirit 
of faith; and I will not forego a warm tribute of admiration, that, 
while the doctrines of materialism, spontaneity of being, remod- 
elings of the globe, extinctions and reproductions of old and new 
races of beings, partial inundations instead of a general deluge, 
and perverted views of the Mosaic Narrative of Creation, have 
sprung up in the Christian world, the isolated Race have clung to 
their original faith, and with such undeviating uniformity as to 
have become one of the most characteristic evidences of the truth 
of Prophecy, while the fulfilment of the Prophecy may be regard- 
ed as an illustration of the truth of the Mosaic Record ; and, if 
we consult the statistics of crime, we may find that the Jewish 
manifestations of faith are founded in principle. 

It seems that in the opinion of many, the " Old Testament " 
should be passed to the same account as other things that are 
old, while the "New Testament" is still consecrated by them 
among the substitutions for the obliterated past. But, I cannot 
doubt that he who would reject the Narrative of Creative Energy, 
as set forth by Moses, must have equal doubts as to the " Theoc- 
racy" of the primitive world, and the miracles of Christ. What 
is old, however, in religion, even its fundamental precepts which 
require an exercise of faith, may be chronicled among the allego- 
ries or the fictions of a barbarous age, through an accustomed dis- 
regard of antiquity, without raising an apprehension that there 
has been any violence done to the Revelation of Heaven. Let it 
not, however, be forgotten, that much of what is revealed in Gen- 
esis, and that which is most important, is indelibly impressed up- 
on the works which it reveals, while the miracles of our Saviour 
rest alone upon the testimony of man. The latter, too, are as 
much an act of Creative Energy as the former. There is not an 
object in Nature, especially Organic Nature, which does not 
abound with the most unequivocal proof of its origin in Omnis- 
cience, and as set forth in the Mosaic Record ; but where shall we 
look for a corresponding proof of the Miracles of Christ, or of the 
Primitive Theocracy whose statutes are received by every portion 
of mankind to whom they have been disclosed? Let there be 
consistency or no disguise. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 167 

Several years have passed since I expressed an intention of sub- 
mitting to the world an examination of geological facts, with a 
reference to the statements in the Mosaic Record of Creation and 
of the Deluge. I had then prepared a large work upon the sub- 
ject, in which all the facts of importance in Geology, up to that 
period, are reviewed, and none of them found, in my judgment, to 
conflict with the most obvious interpretation of the Narrative. I 
was led to make the attempt of reconciling the disclosures of Ge- 
ology with what is revealed, and in its literal acceptation, so that 
it should meet with the consent of Science, from a conviction that 
it could be done only by one acquainted with Physiology. It has 
been the misfortune of those who have attempted this work by 
the force of Revelation to have defeated their cause and strength- 
ened their opponents' by glaring assumptions ; while the Geologist 
has adhered to facts according to their apparently natural import, 
and founded theoretical speculations upon them. The enterprise 
is surrounded with apparently formidable difficulties, which must 
be explained in conformity with facts and philosophy. The fruit- 
ful topics relative to the extent and orderly disposition of fossils 
and fussiliferous rocks, the general details attending the incrusta- 
tion of the globe, the numerous and complicated enigmas of the 
coal formations, must be resolved according to natural laws ; the 
Neptunian and Plutonic hypotheses must be disproved, and the 
Creation of the earth, according to the Narrative, paced upon such 
probabilities as shall not conflict with the analogies of Nature, 
though brought within the time assigned by the Mosaic Narra- 
tive. The Mosaic Genealogies of the human race must be also 
sustained, and it must be shown that there is nothing in Geology 
to contradict the supposed age of the earth as founded upon those 
Genealogies. If no error have crept into them since their Reve- 
lation, they must be placed upon the same ground as the Narra- 
tive of Creation ; while, also, they embrace a strong internal 
proof of their Divine Origin, and are fully corroborated by the 
admitted brevity of man's existence upon the globe. This being 
shown, it will be readily seen that it reacts as a strong corrobora- 



68 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

ting proof of the literal truth of the Narrative of Creation ; and 
no small array of geological facts, and fundamental principles in 
science, may be brought to the disproof of all theories which con- 
flict with the obvious interpretation of the primeval history of the 
earth and its inhabitants down to the time of Moses. Indeed, 
there is abundant evidence in the coal formations alone to sub- 
vert the whole system of theoretical Geology, so far as it conflicts 
with the Mosaic statements ; and the primitive rocks bear an 
overwhelming testimony that " He spoke and it was done." 

When I had thus nearly accomplished my undertaking, new pro- 
fessional avocations devolved upon me, other and laborious profes- 
sional writings urged themselves upon my attention, which, in 
connection with unintermitting infirmity of health, compelled me 
to lay aside my geological work. The subject, nevertheless, has 
been constantly more or less before me, that I might give greater 
maturity to the past by the progressive researches of geologists 
and by others executed by myself. 

I have thus made this explanation on account of my former al- 
lusion to the subject, and will also add, that it is now my purpose 
to bring out an abridgment of the manuscript as soon as the 
state of my health, and other avocations, will admit, and to com- 
plete, at my leisure, the more enlarged work ; or, in the event of 
my failure, the manuscript will be left to the disposal of my son. 
I believe it is free from speculation, certainly from assumptions, 
nor has it been prepared without those practical observations 
which are indispensable to success in all difficult inquiries. 

In making the foregoing attempt, I am fully sensible that it 
must be performed through recognized facts, and without refer- 
ence to what is revealed ; though having effected the main pur- 
pose by demonstrative evidence, and endeavored to show that 
there is nothing contradictory of Revelation, I have appended an 
exposition of the Mosaic Narrative as corroborating testimony. 
That Narrative abounds with the most indisputable proof of its 
Divine Origin, and that, by no possibility, could it have been the 
fabrication of man. Eut this is not the species of testimony upon 
which reliance may be placed, when its authority is controverted. 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 169 

It has been often tried, and its professional Expounders now quiet- 
ly or actively yield to what they are told are the exigencies in 
Geology, and the " spirit of the age." An allowance is undoubt- 
edly to be made upon this ground, and the Interpreter of Religion 
is not required to forego unequivocal demonstrations in philoso- 
phy. But he has no reason to fear the imputation of ignorance, 
or of intolerance, while surrounding the truth with the panoply 
of facts. He is equally warranted in doubting the just applica- 
tion of others whenever it may conflict with what is revealed in 
language of obvious import, and especially when it is sustained by 
the very nature of things, as, for example, by the works of Crea- 
tion, or where, as in the fourth Commandment, the days of Crea- 
tion are exactly defined in presenting their time, specifically, as a 
reason for hallowing the seventh. That Commandment, indeed, 
must be abandoned as spurious, if the days of the Mosaic Record 
exceed the period of those to which the Commandment has an 
immediate reference. Such is the plain alternative. There can 
be nothing figurative in the language of the Commandment, which 
is designed for the practical purposes of mankind, and it is, so far 
as my proof is concerned, an exact repetition of the Narrative 
itself. The minister of Religion must, therefore, make up his 
mind either to the belief that there are some important defects in 
theoretical Geology, and adopt the obvious interpretation of the 
Mosaic Narrative, or to surrender the fourth Commandment. 
This logic, I presume, will not be disputed. But before the latter 
step be taken, let us consider how much evidence there is in the 
very nature of things to assure us that the most remarkable part 
of the Narrative of Creation must be received in its literal sense, 
and that much of that proof has been only known to modern sci- 
ence ; and secondly, let us duly consider the emphatic reference 
to the days of Creation in the great Commandment which hal- 
lows the seventh, — presented to the faith of mankind with all the 
force of a stupendous reason to induce obedience. 

" Foe, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, 
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, 
the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." 



170 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

So, the Commandment. Now for the foundation upon which 
it rests, — 

" Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host 
of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which he 
had made ; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work 
which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and 
sanctified it ; because that in it He had rested from all His work 
which God created and made." 

It appears, therefore, that such are the specifications, and such 
their coincidences, as presented in the fourth Commandment and 
in the Narrative of Creation, that if the former be truly the Word 
of God, so is the latter, and that we may safely conclude that there 
will be no revelations in Geology which will affect the correspon- 
dence between the length of the days of Creation and those of the 
Commandment, except in the mind of the Infidel. All others will 
make the proper discrimination between events which were the 
direct result of Creative Energy and such as have sprung from the 
order of Nature, and will as patiently, as undoubtingly, await the 
reconciliation of geological problems with what is so distinctly and 
emphatically pronounced by the Author of Nature. But when it 
is considered why the General Deluge was brought upon the hu- 
man race, and how idolatry prevailed in the immediate personal 
presence of the Almighty, it can scarcely be expected that the 
" Medals of the Rocks" will not stand up before Him with as much 
defiance as the " Golden Calf." 

Returning to the main object of this note, I may say, that, in 
respect to Divine superintendence, it must be allowed to be equally 
coextensive with all secondary causes ; but apparently acting in 
conformity with the ordinary operation of those causes. 

It is assumed by many late Physiologists, as Drs. Carpenter, 
Prichard, &c, after contending for the existence of vital proper- 
ties in the elements of matter, and the organizing agency of the 
forces of Chemistry, that, nevertheless, all the results of living be- 
ings are owing to the immediate acts of the Almighty. This, 
therefore, as with the Author of the Vestiges of the Natural His- 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 171 

tory of Creation, is only a circuitous method of confounding nature 
with God. Let us, however, suppose that there is a Supreme Be- 
ing in their opinion, who is the Author of Nature, and that He is 
the Power who presides in living beings, and regulates all their 
processes, and we shall see that the doctrine abounds with absurdi- 
ties. Its advocates generally carry this sophistry so far as to 
affirm that the particles of matter are constantly maintained in 
union by Almighty Power, that the results of chemical affinities 
are nothing but manifestations of that Power, that gravitation is 
only a constant emanation of the Deity, that digestion, circulation, 
secretion, excretion, &c, are only immediate acts of God. It is 
plain, therefore, that they can allow no other God than the nature 
of which He was the Author. 

But let us try this hypothesis upon their own physiological 
ground. Living beings are made up of matter, which, it will be 
at least conceded, is distinct from the properties and forces with 
which it is endowed, and which are assumed to be equivalent to 
the Almighty. If we regard, next, the results of vital stimuli, we 
have a palpable proof that they elicit actions and physical results 
through principles which possess the power of acting, whatever 
their nature, or we must take up the absurdity of supposing they 
act upon God Himself, so only the foregoing hypothesis be truly 
entertained. The same must be affirmed of poisons, medicinal 
agents, &c. But this will not hold either in Religion or Philoso- 
phy. Nevertheless, it is evident that something is acted upon and 
brought into various active conditions, or, at other times, all power 
of acting is extinguished. If stimulants be applied to the nose, 
the heart may be thrown, on the instant, into increased action, 
and there may be an attendant paroxysm of sneezing. Of course, 
it cannot be entertained that God is the agent acted upon in such 
a case, any more than when prussic acid destroys life with the 
same instantaneousness, unless God and nature be truly the same. 
From these premises it follows that God, in the acceptation of a 
Creator, cannot be assumed as the immediate cause of the healthy 
and natural functions, and, therefore, of none of the phenomena of 
the natural world. 



172 THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 

It has unfortunately happened, that many philosophers have em- 
braced this most insidious sophistry, in the belief that ihey would 
thus enlarge our conceptions of Almighty Power according to the 
whisperings of its inventors, without considering the inevitable 
consequences to which it must lead, or that He who could create 
a particle of matter must have been equally capable of speaking 
the Universe into existence. Admit the first step in Creation, 
and all the rest will follow, of course. We shall then no longer 
hear, according to an eminent astronomer, that " Organic Nature 
is the mystery of mysteries." He, therefore, who has a proper 
view of Creative Energy, can obtain no more exalted conceptions 
of its Power than what is afforded by matter itself. And it ap- 
pears to me that this construction redounds more to the Glory of 
God than such as requires a more extended testimony. But the 
higher attributes of matter, in its condition of systems of Design, 
reveal far more distinctly to the great mass of observers the ope- 
rations of mind, and if, therefore, these evidences of Creative En- 
ergy be ascribed to the inherent properties of simple matter, the 
chances are great, at least, that we shall fall into theoretical, if not 
practical, atheism. And, although matter require for its Crea- 
tion the same Power as the designs into which it is organized, it 
is also certainly true, that the more we contemplate the works of 
Design, the more do we become impressed with the Beneficence 
of the Creator, the extent of our responsibilities, and our absolute 
dependence. And true it is, that every demonstration of Crea- 
tive Power which Nature affords, and which man may turn into 
demonstration, is not only conducive to the foregoing objects, but 
is too often necessary to satisfy the mind of the nature of Infinite 
Power. (See Author's Institutes of Medicine, Index, Art. God 
and Nature, and Design. Also, § 14, c; 170, a., for Author's 
proof of the existence of Creative Power as derived from the con- 
stitution of inorganic and organic matter.) 

P. S. In the discussion of difficult or controverted questions, 
I have been in the habit of seeking opinions and facts for support 
or illustration, which had either been employed by others for other 



THE SOUL AND INSTINCT. 173 

purposes, or which had been designed for conclusions opposite to 
my own. This postscript is intended to introduce one of the for- 
mer nature, to show, farther, the extent of the will in its control 
over other properties of the mind, how it may turn with dele- 
terious or with salutary effect one passion or another upon particu- 
lar parts of the body, or may withdraw their influence from such 
parts, as set forth at page 81, and in a note, page 87, and how 
clearly the several properties of the mind are susceptible of analy- 
sis, and, lastly, to offer one proof more of the individuality and 
self-acting nature of the soul as a distinct essence. 

The proof and illustration to which I refer occurs in a Note to 
a Pamphlet on the Cholera, by J. P. Batchelder, M. D., published 
since the foregoing Essay was printed. It will be seen that it 
has the advantage of being exactly the converse of my own ; that 
is to say, while my exposition is designed to represent the control 
of the will in averting the morbific action of fear from the entire 
body or from particular parts, it is Dr. Batchelder's object to show 
that " this passion, by turning the attention inward, and fixing it 
on the stomach and bowels, has a great influence as an exciting 
as well as predisposing cause of Cholera." Thus, — 

" This passion, by turning the attention inward, and fixing it upon the stom- 
ach and bowels, has, in addition to the general contraction of the capillaries 
which it induces, a great influence as an exciting as well as predisposing cause. 
One lady in full health was introduced to the bedside of a patient in the worst 
form of Cholera. After witnessing for a few minutes the sufferings, she became 
sick, and desired to be helped into another room, where she died of the disease 
in about five hours. By mental sympathy, her attention was fixed on the same 
parts in her own person as were affected in that of the patient whose suffering 
she witnessed. If inquired of, the timid will tell you that they are prone to this 
exercise of the attention, and experience an aggravation of the abdominal unea- 
siness whenever they think of the viscera alluded to." 

To the foregoing cause must be ascribed many of the cases of 
Cholera with which individuals, already predisposed, have been 
attacked during, or immediately after, a short attendance on sub- 
jects of the disease, and which have been strangely enough attri- 
buted to contagion. 



DISCOURSE 



ORGANIC LIFE, 

AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE CHEMICAL AND 
PHYSICAL DOCTRINES, 

INTRODUCTORY 

TO THE AUTHOR'S COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE INSTITUTES OF MEDI- 
CINE AND MATERIA MKDICA, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 

FOR THE SESSION OF M DCC CXL VII-VIII. 

DELIVERED ON THE EVENING OF OCTOBER 28, 1847. 

PUBLISHED ORIGINALLY BY THE MEDICAL CLASS. 



" The Science of Nature, rightly interpreted, is the knowledge of things 
through their causes." "Effects are frustrated by an ignorance of their 
cause ; but a knowledge of the cause becomes a rule in practice." — Lord 
Bacon. 



1849. 



DISCOURSE, &c. 



In looking abroad upon organic nature, its 
most remarkable feature is the variety by which 
it is distinguished. So great, indeed, is the diver- 
sity of form, of organization, and of vital charac- 
teristics, the careless observer regards the assem- 
blage as a mass of heterogeneous objects which 
have few affinities, and often without a remote 
relationship. He looks upon man as fundamen- 
tally distinct from the brute ; and whenever spe- 
cific differences are strongly marked, the same 
isolation obtains as we descend in the scale of ex- 
istences. Coming, at last, to the vegetable king- 
dom, there is so little apparent analogy with the 
prominent features of the animal race, that none 
but the physiologist can detect a shadow of re- 
semblance between the two departments of the 
organic kingdom. How different, however, with 
him who has explored the whole by the light of 
science. Whatever the color or the conformation 
of man, he is always endowed with certain attri- 



178 ORGANIC LIFE. 

butes which give to the critical inquirer as per- 
fect an assurance of identity of species as the 
clearest demonstration enables the ignorant to de- 
cide that there is no other difference than color in 
a brood of chickens.* By the same course of ob- 
servation the philosopher, after descending along 
the thousands of species which make up the tribes 
of animals, finds himself wonderfully imitated in 
form, structure, and functions, by apes and ba- 
boons, and taking in his way other species which 
are as nearly allied to the ape as the ape is to 

* I need scarcely say that all the essential attributes of species 
are common to the whole human family, and that this rule of 
identity must obtain with man as with the different species of 
animals and plants. In organization, the nature of food, the rela- 
tive proportions of atmospheric air concerned in respiration, the 
character of the secreted and excreted products, and in every fun- 
damental point, the several races of mankind are exactly the 
same. We know, also, that no varieties of species, either of ani- 
mals or plants, have been created, but that all the varieties, so far 
as known, have been the result of the gradual operation of physi- 
cal causes. These may not have given rise to the color of the 
Negro, nor is it probably owing, as supposed by many, to the 
mark set upon Cain. (See Medical and Physiolog. Comm., Vol. 
2, p. 640) But the fact in relation to Cain allows a consistent 
supposition that the color of the Negro may be of the same mira- 
culous nature ; while the facts which identify the human race as 
one species are incontrovertible. Besides those which are rela- 
tive to organic nature, T have set forth another, in the Institutes 
of Medicine, which, in itself, seems to be conclusive of the com- 
mon descent of mankind. That fact consists in the coincidence 



ORGANIC LIFE. 179 

man, he obfains more humiliating resemblances 
in yet inferior animals ; and by thus pursuing the 
chain of close affinities as one species is only a 
little removed from the next above, he is ulti- 
mately brought to "the startling conclusion that he 
is on common ground with the worm of the dust, 
as it regards the great plan of organic life. Nay, 
more, when he penetrates the world of plants, he 
sees his semblance in every tree, in every herb, 
and submits to a close alliance with the mush- 
room and the parasite. 

which obtains in reason and instinctive impulses between the 
races. All analogy enforces the conclusion, since there are no 
two distinct species of animals that do not manifest certain well- 
marked peculiarities of instinct. We have thus, then, the mental 
and physical characteristics concurring together in establishing 
the identity of mankind. 

With the foregoing premises, therefore, I may now bring Reve- 
lation to the aid of this question ; since, if it correspond with the 
known facts, we may find something in it which will corroborate 
the testimony of science, and equally prove, through the instru- 
mentality of science, the Divine origin of the Narrative of Crea- 
tion. The reciprocal proof is this : In the first place, the affirm- 
ation of the descent of mankind from a common ancestor; and, 
secondly, as none will doubt that the black man existed at the 
time of Moses, it must be allowed that this writer, unless inspired, 
would have assigned a distinct origin to the two races, in his ig- 
norance of the attributes of species, and especially so, as modern 
physiologists overlook those attributes, which thpy so well under- 
stand, and found a distinction of species upon slight differences in 
the skin. 



180 ORGANIC LIFE. 

He partakes, in common with the whole, the 
same elementary composition, the same principle 
of life, the same functions by which he came into 
existence, the same by which his growth is car- 
ried on, and is finally alike resolved into those 
elements which he was incapable of uniting into 
organic compounds, but for the union of which 
he was dependent upon vegetable structure. He 
enjoys, however, but only in common with all 
other animals, a superaddition to his essential or 
vegetable life in the nervous system and the or- 
gans of sense which are particularly associated 
with it. In certain moral attributes, such as will- 
ing, and perceiving, he offers points of resem- 
blance to many of the most humble in the scale 
of being ; but in respect to the special functions 
of instinct, they have either scarcely an existence 
in man, or put on the manifestations of reason. 
Man, therefore, finds himself contradistinguished 
from the vegetable tribes, in respect to the great 
plan of life, in little else than a more complex 
structure ; and what is superadded to answer the 
purposes of sensual enjoyment, he holds in com- 
mon with the kingdom of which he is the head. 
So far, then, he is only primus inter pares, — the 
first among his equals. 

It is true, he walks erect, and has distinguish- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 181 

ing powers of articulation, though there are none 
of us who sing- so sweetly as the birds. But who 
else than man could have traced out this magnifi- 
cent system of affinities, or have shown his rela- 
tionship to every moving thing, and to every plant 
that grows ? That is his prerogative alone, and 
it is that thinking, immortal principle which sep- 
arates him so widely from all other created exist- 
ences as to establish a relationship, a companion- 
ship, with God himself. In this aspect of his na- 
ture he stands alone upon earth, and looks up 
to Heaven for an intimate alliance with that Su- 
preme Intelligence who had laid the plan of his 
general economy in harmonious relation to those 
objects which were created for his uses and hap- 
piness. In the one, he realizes an Infinite Wis- 
dom and Power in his physical connections which 
attend his being upon earth ; in the other, he 
equally sees that the end of those connections 
separates him completely from matter, and leaves 
him alone related to the Spirit in whose Image 
his intellectual part had been ordained and asso- 
ciated with perishable Nature. 

It is mine, however, to speak of man as he ex- 
ists upon earth, to point out his affinities to the 
objects which surround him, and to indicate the 
influences and changes to which he is liable. It 
9 



182 ORGANIC LIFE. 

is, however, only a glance at some small portion of 
this vast field which can be taken in an hour; and 
a life-time could not compass what is useful to be 
known in the walks of physiology, and as they 
traverse the recesses of pathology and therapeu- 
tics. Before we can begin, however, to investigate 
the functions of living beings in their healthy 
and morbid states, we must know something of 
the structure through which they are performed ; 
and this is distinguished by great variety, espe- 
cially in the animal kingdom. Numerous com- 
plex organs are here introduced which have no 
existence in plants ; and where the office of each 
organ is the same, the structure of each is varia- 
ble in the different species of animals. It is in 
plants alone that we meet with little else than 
what is strictly essential to organic life ; and so 
perfectly coextensive with animated nature is the 
fundamental plan of life, that what composes the 
essential structure of plants is also at the founda- 
tion of animal existences. It is in those vessels, 
or in such as are closely analogous, which carry 
on the processes of assimilation and secretion in 
the vegetable world, that we must look for growth, 
nutrition, secretion, &c, in animals ; and what, 
therefore, is superadded to the organic mechan- 
ism of the latter, is at most but incidentally sub- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 183 

sidiary to the fundamental structure.* The same 
order of simplicity prevails, also, throughout all 
the mutations to which animals and plants are 
liable. If disease beset the plant, it is but a mod- 
ification of the physiological states of the vascular 
apparatus, and when the latter gives way, it is 
only a restoration of the more natural processes. 
And just so with man and animals. The dis- 
eases of each are only variations of the ordinary 
condition of the simple instruments of life, and as 
that condition fluctuates, so will there be health, 
disease, or convalescence.! Whatever may befall 
a complex organ, it is to its minute apparatus that 
we must look for the radical evil, and it is there 
our means of correction exert the salutary changes 
which they may introduce. 

But, the mechanism of which I have been 
speaking would be as useless as the watch with- 
out its spring, were it not moved by a power 
equally adapted to all the processes of animated 
nature. The same stillness would prevail in one 
as in the other. There could be no manifesta- 
tions of life without an active principle of life ; 



* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, § 170 — 174; 177- 
187 ; 394—396 ; 410, 411 ; 526, a. 

1 See Institutes of Medicine, § 895—901, 



184 ORGANIC LIFE. 

and since the results in organic mechanism are 
everywhere nearly the same, we unavoidably in- 
fer a common moving power throughout, — the 
same in plants as in the higher kingdom. Thus 
also we find a universal resemblance in the essen- 
tial mechanism and in the power by which it is 
maintained in action. 

To this power, for conventional purposes, it is 
convenient to apply a name. That which moves 
the mechanism of a watch, we call a spring ; and 
whenever the term is applied in connection with 
that mechanism, it is suggestive of the office which 
it performs. I doubt not that all of you regard 
it as a convenient, and even useful name. The 
spring of a watch reminds you at once of the me- 
chanism which it controls, and even of what is 
going forward in relation to time. Coming to 
the mechanism and phenomena of organic beings, 
we witness nothing in inorganic nature or among 
the contrivances of art which bears a resemblance 
to either of the former. We therefore infer the 
existence of a power, by which one is moved in 
giving rise to the other, as unique as organization 
and its results. This power, for conventional 
objects, as in the other case, has been generally 
called the vital principle, or the principle of life. 
The term, also, as in the other instance, is sug- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 185 

gestive of much of the diversified mechanism to 
which it appertains, and of very many of those 
unique results of which it is the efficient cause. 
It is a term which most men have understood, 
and have employed as significant of a peculiar 
power, till quite recently it has been given out 
that life is a dream of the imagination, and that 
not a little of all this phantom may be represented 
by the cunning devices of man. But being de- 
termined myself to follow the well-beaten path of 
nature, and to hold on upon Truth, rather than to 
seek eclat in violations of either, it will become 
my pleasant duty to place you honestly in pursuit 
of both, and to show you the snares by which they 
are surrounded. I speak, however, in a general 
sense ; for there are those who have as honestly 
imbibed and promulgated the errors which sap 
the foundation of medicine, and for whom I cher- 
ish the deepest respect as philosophers in those 
departments of science which it is their province 
to cultivate. 

We have now before us, then, a principle of 
life ; — something, to be sure, not quite so tangible 
as the spring of a watch, but quite as well under- 
stood by the results to which it gives rise. But 
remember well — never to speculate as to the na- 
ture of this principle, or, indeed, of any other ex- 



186 ORGANIC LIFE. 

istence. Study the mechanism and the pheno- 
mena alone, and through them ascertain the laws 
and the principles. It is to a neglect of inductive 
philosophy that the instability of medicine must 
be ascribed. 

Let us, then, by a rational method, look a little 
farther at this spring of life. Do you see nothing 
else than an unvarying movement of wheels ; 
nothing besides some special result as simple as 
that of the index of a dial ? Do you not see the 
plant uniting the elements of matter into orga- 
nic compounds, while the animal carries forward 
those compounds to yet greater perfection ? Do 
you not find a great diversity of secreted products 
in every plant, and that according to the nature 
of the species, — according even as every part dif- 
fers from another part, — and that, too, for ever the 
same in the natural state of the being? What 
variety of odors, what an exact but endless vari- 
ety is offered to the taste and to vision ! What 
strange diversity, yet always precise; while the 
action of this almost endless series of organic 
products is always the same upon every part to 
which it belongs ; and yet that which is the pro- 
duct of one part is often destructive to all other 
parts of the same being by which it is generated.* 

* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, §135—137 ; 170—175. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 187 

But we have no time to pursue what is apparent- 
ly without end. The brief suggestions which I 
have made will remind you of a thousand others 
of a similar nature, and satisfy you at your very 
first step in the vegetable kingdom, at the very 
threshold of life, that you have entered a world 
which has no analogies in composition, in struc- 
ture, in powers, in functions, in tangible and in- 
tangible results, with any of the conditions or 
phenomena of inorganic nature. Glancing again 
at the animal kingdom, it is all the sam j as re- 
spects the essential conditions of life, the same 
exact variety, the same functions, products, and 
other endless phenomena, with smaller differen- 
ces in respect to each than such as distinguish 
that elaborate structure where all the important 
processes are carried on.* 

You begin, therefore, to realize the necessity of 
a peculiar power for all this unique variety, and 
the convenience of some term which shall distin- 
guish it from every other power, and which, as 
far as possible, shall be expressive of its import- 
ant offices. You are already prepared by this 
superficial view of the beginning of our demon- 
strations to take up your steady march along this 

* See Essay on the Soul, &c, p. 115. 



188 ORGANIC LIFE. 

fascinating path of nature, to be conducted along 
rather by the steady light which she may afford, 
than by those gleams or flashes with which ait 
may attempt to beguile your imagination. I 
freely concede that one is a task, while the other 
is a pastime; that one involves the widest and a 
toilsome research, while the other is so purely a 
matter of sense as to admit of nothing else than 
an agreeable exercise of vision. Such of you as 
may prefer the former, will become enlightened 
physicians, will find in organic inquiries the best 
of your enjoyments, and will realize in yourselves 
what gives the highest value to man ; but such 
as will be satisfied with the illusions of sense, as 
they abound in the outskirts of medicine, will be- 
come the victims of sense, and your patients the 
victims of error. 

As you advance in the knowledge of Physiolo- 
gy, you will see that the effects of life are so va- 
rious, and so obviously influenced by natural 
agents, and even by what is within — by the mind 
itself — you will necessarily conclude that the 
principle of life is also unlike all the other pow- 
ers in nature in being endowed with certain 
properties, and liable to certain changes, which 
are totally unknown to the inorganic world. 
You will see, for example, that this principle is 



ORGANIC LIFE, 189 

variously acted upon — and according to the na- 
ture of the agents, and that motions and other ef- 
fects ensue more or less in conformity with the 
influences which are exerted. These phenome- 
na have given rise to an analysis of the principle 
of life ; and practical uses as well as philosophy 
have ascribed to it a property of irritability, as 
well as of ■mobility ; — just as they have to the 
soul the properties of judgment, reflection, &c. 
Mobility implies the power of acting, and is a very 
convenient name among those who are inclined 
to understand each other. Irritability has been 
long in use to denote a peevish mind, and by a 
little modification of its import in that relation, 
we shall find it a very convenient and useful 
term to denote the property in organic life upon 
which all things make their direct motory im- 
pression, and through which the moving power 
brings the mechanism into action.* 

& * See Author's Institutes of Medicine, § 177—215; 253— 
267 ; 452 — 461, where this subject is extensively considered. 
Also, as related to the modifications of irritability in man and 
the different species of animals and plants, and through which 
certain morbific causes will induce disease in one species and in 
no others, and for physiological facts disproving the contagious- 
ness of diseases which are known to be often produced by mias- 
mata and other atmospheric agents, see, in connection, § 133 — ■ 
152; 191; 652,653. In respect to this mooted question, it is 

9* 



190 ORGANIC LIFE. 

So far, then, and much farther, all things are 
common to plants and animals ; the whole assem- 
blage of which constitutes their essential or or- 
ganic life. But there are certain things peculiar 

unimportant whether the well-established dependence of intermit- 
tent and yellow fevers, &c, upon miasmata or other atmospheric 
causes, or their assumed dependence upon admitted hypothetical 
" animalcula," or "fungi," be received ; for it is just as absurd to 
suppose, (as imagined by some writers,) that the human organism 
can reproduce the animals or plants, (which is only a phase ot 
spontaneous generation,) as to attribute to it the generation of 
those specific atmospheric agents which are commonly supposed 
to be the prevailing causes of yellow fever, intermittents, the ma- 
lignant cholera, &c , in man, or another analogous cause to deter- 
mine the " potato-rot," or another to produce an epidemic among 
horned cattle, or another among horses, according to the nature of 
the atmospheric poison and the exact nature of the plant or ani- 
mal. So, on the other hand, if the virus of the smallpox, and 
of other contagious diseases, be generated by the living organ- 
ism, it cannot be reproduced by chemical decompositions, and 
such diseases are, therefore, propagated alone by contagion. The 
facts and the philosophy are equally good in both the cases, and 
mutually sustain each other. But I would willingly waive the 
specific facts at the risk of those upon which the philosophy is 
founded, and thus rest the doctrine upon the immutable laws of 
organic life and as they are distinguished from those which gov- 
ern the mere physical world. To the wavering upon this ques 
tion of contagiousness of cholera and yellow fever, especially, and 
to effect a substitution of a profitable attention to the cleanliness 
of cities for the useless system of quarantine, I may also introduce, 
in this place, a combination of laws which I formerly set forth as 
distinguishing those diseases which are truly communicable with- 
out contact from all other affections, namely, that they have never 



ORGANIC LIFE. 191 

to animals, and, therefore, as there is reason to 
believe, are totally wanting in plants. The latter, 
for example, neither see, nor hear, nor smell, and 
these are functions which many are apt to sup- 
been known to arise from any other source than human conta- 
gion ; that they are distinguished by definite symptoms, a regular 
course of rise and decline, and actually terminate at a definite 
time which cannot be accelerated by art ; and that they rarely af- 
fect us a second time. (See Author's Medical and Physiological 
Commentaries, Vol. 2, p. 507 — 514.) 

In connection with the foregoing subject. I will not neglect say- 
ing that there are no speculatists in medicine so great as they 
who insist most strenuously upon nothing but facts. If proof of 
this be required, it maybe found in the assumption of animalcula, 
and fungi, and ozone, as the causes of epidemics, and the specific 
treatment which proceeds upon those assumptions, not only to the 
neglect of the absolute pathology, but of the symptoms of dis- 
ease ; or an extensive survey of the subject may be seen in the 
Author's Institutes of Medicine, § 4 — 5 ; 349 ; and in the Arti- 
cle on the Writings of Louis, in the Medical and Physiological 
Commentaries, Vol. 2, p. 679 — 815. 

Though not relative to my subject, I will embrace this opportu- 
nity to say that my views respecting the pathology and treatment 
of the malignant Cholera, as expressed in my Work upon that dis- 
ease, remain without change ; that I still regard the disease as a 
congestive fever, of which the collapse is the stage of universal in- 
vasion, or cold stage of fever, as is well understood by all who 
have been so fortunate as to witness the stage of reaction, and the 
subsequent slow progress of recovery, — that all the antecedent 
symptoms proceed from local derangements, and that the diar- 
rhoea, therefore, is only a contingent symptom which commonly 
preceJes the explosion of the constitutional malady, and is only 
so far on a par with many other symptoms which mark the ap- 



192 ORGANIC LIFE. 

pose are the very essence of life. But this is a 
very false conclusion, for the animal would live 
just as well without eyes, nose, or ears. This is 
distinctly seen in the condition of the foetus, and 

proach of other fevers, or as that same symptom, under a mod- 
ified state of the abdominal secretions, often precedes an attack 
of typhus fever, and the pathological cause of which is very apt to 
become the immediate exciting cause of either of the general af- 
fections. The intestinal affection is not at all necessary to the 
malignant Cholera, nor is the suppression of urine. I have known 
the former to have been wholly absent, and in the East Indies, 
and among the negroes of the Mississippi, there have been a mul- 
titude of similar cases. That form is called, by physicians in 
Louisiana, the Cholera sicca ! I have also known the urine to 
have been freely passed " in two cases during protracted col- 
lapse, and in which the patients were pulseless from the beginning, 
in the private practice of C. A. Lee, M. D." (Paine's Letters on 
the Cholera Asphyxia of New York, 1832, p. 117.) This has 
been common in Paris in 1849. The suppression of urine, how- 
ever, is much more uniform than the absence of diarrhoea, and 
hence some writers have supposed that the disease consists es- 
sentially in that symptom, while a greater number regard the di- 
arrhoea as the sine qua non. These unhappy views in pathology 
have engaged my attention in the Institutes of Medicine, where 
they may be found particularly under the articles Astringents, An- 
tispasmodics, Diuretics, and Expectorants, by those who are in- 
terested in the inquiry. Also, in my Essay upon the Writings of 
M. Louis. Were the prostration of the circulatory organs, which 
is always present, assumed as the significant symptom, it would 
have some point as it respects the general pathological condition. 
The name of the disease has been an unfortunate one, having led 
to much of the error in respect to its pathology, and to a great 
deal in its treatment. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 193 

even during sleep ; for then organic life is alone 
in operation. Looking, also, at the internal struc- 
ture, we find a remarkable system of organs in 
animals, of which no trace can be detected in 

Finally, it is still found that they are the most fortunate who are 
admonished of the probable or possible approach of the malignant 
Cholera by the occurrence of diarrhoea, since, as a symptom of 
the access, it is very easily arrested, a powerful exciting cause 
withdrawn, and the patient thus restored to health ; while, on the 
contrary, if an explosion of the general malady supervene, there is 
as much more to be done than to subdue the intestinal affection, 
as when the disease occurs without diarrhoea. I therefore con- 
sider the diarrhoea well designated as " a premonitory symptom," 
since it implies a condition of disease which is very local, and 
which will readily yield to abstinence from all food, rest in bed, 
some form of opium and camphor, and a frequent succession of 
hot poultices, or counter-irritants, to the abdominal region. In 
that stage I employ no other remedies. When the general mala- 
dy supervenes, I depend upon calomel, opium, and camphor, but 
employ the calomel in smaller doses than recommended in my 
Work, — doses varying from one to five grains once in an hour to 
four or five hours. This treatment by calomel is also expedient 
when the intestinal discharges are of a bad character, and do not 
yield to opium, &c. A large blister over the stomach and bow- 
els is then, also, very important, although I do not see it recom- 
mended. It is useless after collapse, but highly salutary in bad 
forms of the antecedent diarrhoea. They go deep, while mustard 
cataplasms and cayenne pepper exert but very little curative ef- 
fect. (See, on this subject, Article Counter-irritants, in Insti- 
tutes of Medicine) 

Acetate of lead, in the treatment of cholera, which has been 
much recommended, is evidently injurious. Its administration 
has been founded upon erroneous views of the modus operandi of 



194 ORGANIC LIFE. 

plants. That system, according to its different 
parts, goes under the names of brain, ganglia, and 
nerves, and it is found to be especially subservient 
to the senses, and to the soul and instinct. It also 
establishes harmonious relations among the more 
complicated organic structures of animals ; and it 
is a medium through which that harmony may 
be disturbed. There is nothing like this in 
plants ; and yet they have as much of what is 
truly essential to life as the most perfect animal. 



opium, which does not exert its effects after the manner of as- 
tringents, but by subduing the irritability of the intestinal mucous 
membrane. (See, on this subject, Articles Narcotics and Astrin- 
gents, in the Author's Institutes of Medicine, and his Therapeu- 
tics and Materia Medica, p. 291—293; 318—321.) Before, 
however, any settled views will prevail as to the treatment of the 
epidemic cholera, there must be more definite conceptions of its 
pathology, and it must be seen that like smallpox, measles, scarlet 
fever, continued fever, intermittents, &c, the malignant cholera 
and cholera morbus are only allied in having some prominent 
symptoms in common in a large proportion of cases ; but that the 
resemblance terminates there. This is shown by morbid anato- 
my, by the alvine secretions, by the aggregate symptoms, by the 
frequent absence of vomiting and purging in the asphyxiated dis- 
ease, by the progress of both affections, by the epidemic nature, 
and, therefore, by the essential remote cause of the malignant 
form/ by the difference in effects of certain remedies, as the 
mercurials and loss of blood, and by the almost universally fatal 
nature of the epidemic " in the stage of collapse." 

* See Institutes of MecTcine, p. 414— 127. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 195 

What is superadded to the latter is for his conve- 
nience, his enjoyments, and to balance nicely his 
more compounded structures. 

The peculiar functions of which I have now- 
spoken are assembled into two genera, one of 
which is called sensation^ and the other sympa- 
thy. Sensation comprehends seeing, smelling, 
hearing, tasting and feeling ; while sympathy is 
the office by which harmonious relations are es- 
tablished among the complex structures. The 
latter function is also called reflex- action. You 
perceive that they are very good names, and are 
quite expressive of what they are intended to 
mean ; though here, as with everything else 
which implies the existence of life, many have 
been disposed to quarrel them out of the language 
of science. 

Thus we have got two comprehensive func- 
tions which are peculiar to animals, — sensation 
and sympathy.* 

These functions imply the existence of two 
properties of the principle of life, which are as 
peculiar to animals as are the functions which 
originate in them. One of the properties is called 
sensibility, the other the nervous power. Sensi- 

* See Author's Institutes of Medicine, the Index. 



196 ORGANIC LIFE. 

bility, therefore, is the property upon which sen- 
sation depends, and the nervous power is the 
agent of sympathy ; while the nervous system is 
the part or organ in which they reside. You per- 
ceive, also, that these are very good names, and 
are very significant of what they stand for. It is 
true, that many have made the great mistake of 
supposing that the nervous system is intrinsically 
concerned in the organic processes of animals : 
but since those processes and their results, such 
as growth, secretion, &c, are essentially the same 
in plants as in animals, and as plants are destitute 
of nerves, and possess no nervous power, you 
readily see the nature of the blunder. Finally, 
sensibility is a good deal allied to irritability ; 
since, while all things make their impressions 
upon irritability in absolute life, it is upon sensi- 
bility that agents operate in giving rise to sensa- 
tion. Thus, for example, it is upon the irrita- 
bility of the heart and blood-vessels, and upon the 
sap-vessels, that the blood operates in one case, 
and the sap in the other, and thus maintain the 
several parts in action. Cathartics do the same 
in respect to other organs, and heat acts upon the 
same property throughout the universal body both 
of animals and plants. And so of all things else 
in the main department of life. Coming to sensi- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 197 

bility, this is acted upon in the retina by light, in 
the acoustic nerve by the vibrations of the tym- 
panum, &c, in the Schneiderian membrane by 
odors, and so on. You readily see, therefore, the 
distinction between irritability, which is common 
to plants and animals, and sensibility, which is 
peculiar to animals.* 

What I have now said of the superaddition of 
certain organs, properties, and functions to ani- 
mals, has given rise to a division of their life into 
two parts ; one of which embraces what is truly 
essential to life, and belongs equally to plants, 
and is called organic life ; while the other, or 
non-essential, and which is peculiar to animals, 
#is called animal life. Nevertheless, it should be 
understood that such parts as are most essential 
to organic life pervade all the organs which com- 
pose the division of animal life, since growth, nu- 
trition, &c, are as perfect there as in plants them- 
selves. The nervous system, also, being rendered 
subservient to the organic life of animals, is car- 
ried into all parts of their organization ; although 
the cerebro-spinal system belongs, intrinsically, 
to the division of animal life. The nervous 



* See Institutes of Medicine, § 194—204 ; 222— 233 f ; 450- 
475 ; 500. 



198 ORGANIC LIFE. 

power is thus rendered a:i agent by which all 
parts are balanced in their healthy functions, by 
which all parts are rendered sensitive to the con- 
dition of each other, and by which, when one 
becomes disturbed, another, or all other parts, 
may be thrown into disordered action. In the 
natural state, for example, if the skin be chilled 
and perspiration checked, the nervous power im- 
mediately excites the kidneys to an increased se- 
cretion of urine. Another plain example of an 
analogous process occurs in every act of respira- 
tion, and the process of respiration exemplifies 
exactly what is or should be meant by sympa- 
thy. The mind and its passions are also con- 
stantly bringing the nervous power into an end- * 
less variety of influences, both in organic and 
animal life. In the former case, we see its opera- 
tion directed upon the stomach when vomiting is 
brought on by the imagination, and upon the 
capillary blood-vessels of the face, when shame 
or anger suffuses the countenance. There is 
nothing like all this in plants.* 

We have thus a great symmetrical system, in 
structure, properties, functions and organic re- 

* Ibid, § 222 — 233|, 500, which embraces a summary view of 
the doctrine which I have propounded of the functions of the ner- 
vous power. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 199 

suits, which is alike common to all animated 
nature, while certain additions are provided in 
animals to answer some special ends of their 
being.* You all see that it is a consistent, a har- 
monious plan, and that it is only when we depart 
from the obvious path of nature, that incongrui- 
ties begin to appear. I say you are already con- 
vinced that truth in physiology is just as simple 
and as easily comprehended as it is everywhere 
else. To beget conviction, it is only necessary 

* Much confusion has prevailed upon this subject, in conse- 
quence of too great a distinction which had been drawn by Bichat 
between the life which is common to plants and animals, and 
which is known as organic life, and the superaddition of certain 
organs and functions to animals, and which is called animal life. 
Bichat conveys the impression of two distinct lives, as appertain- 
ing to animals, while, in point of fact, what is peculiar in their 
life is engrafted upon organic life. There is but one principle of 
life ; but in animals, besides what is common to it with the vege- 
table tribes, it possesses certain other endowments that do not 
manifest themselves in plants. For the sake of brevity and con- 
venience, however, we may speak of organic and animal life ; 
but, in having so done, I wish to be understood that I recognise 
but one life, though modified even in its purely organic aspect in 
the two departments of living Nature. (See Institutes of Medi- 
cine, § 183 — 185.) 

In the work to which reference is here made, I have endeavor- 
ed to analyse the whole of this subject, and to bring it out of the 
confusion in which it had been involved, and redeem it from the 
metaphysical mystery with which it had been charged by the phy- 
sical theorists. 



200 ORGANIC LIFE. 

to present it in its naked simplicity, and it will 
then be self-evident to any mind that has not en- 
tangled itself in the prejudices of error. Hence, 
too, you will readily appreciate the importance of 
beginning right, and with a determination to re- 
ject whatever conflicts with the self-evident pro- 
positions of truth. Whatever infringes upon the 
consistency and the unity of the great plan of or- 
ganic nature, you may depend upon it, is the 
spurious work of man. I do not mean, however, 
that you should turn your sight from error as it 
dances before you ; for whatever is dignified in 
truth will always gain by any just comparison; 
and you should know the false that you may as- 
sist in restraining its progress. 

Such, you see, gentlemen, is my solicitude for 
your safety, that I have again wandered from my 
subject to show you the importance of not depart- 
ing from it yourselves. But 1 can only now pre- 
sent you the great landmarks which should guide 
your steps throughout all that domain of nature 
which it is our province to cultivate. Nor have 
I done more than make a general survey of ani- 
mated existence as presented in its most natural 
aspects. Looking at this alone, we should im- 
agine that it is all without change, and that ev- 
ery living being is destined to live on for ever. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 201 

There is nothing in the perfect state of animals 
or plants which denotes their mutability beyond 
what is incident to growth and nutrition — no- 
thing of the liability of all to disease, or death. 
All this is inferred from another series of obser- 
vations ; — and here we pass into the vast fields 
of pathology and therapeutics. But there is no 
possibility of entering those regions but by the 
great domain of physiology. It is true, shorter 
cuts have been often attempted, and in recent 
times.it would seem almost as if they had been 
overrun by foes and plundered of all that is valu- 
able, or which entitles them to our respect or at- 
tention. Your help is wanted in maintaining the 
integrity of nature ; in repairing the breaches that 
have been made in the bulwarks which she has 
erected. You will find much in the artificial 
systems of physiology that is so estranged from 
nature that you will have no chance of smiling 
even at a clumsy caricature; and when you turn 
to pathology and therapeutics, as managed by the 
same philosophers, you will be amazed to see how 
these three branches of science have been stripped 
of their relations to nature. Should you, how- 
ever, be inclined to follow those inquirers who 
have been guided by the light of truth, you will 
find all my assurances sustained by your own ob- 



202 ORGANIC LIFE. 

servations. You will find nothing inconsistent 
in any branch of your pursuits, and that the 
whole is bound together by the closest affinities. 
You will find that physiology, in its connection 
with organization, lies at the foundation of patho- 
logy and therapeutics, and of all those interme- 
diate changes which make up the transient or 
permanent differences among individuals of the 
same species. All the changes that may befall the 
most natural state of the being, from the most ag- 
gravated forms of disease to temperament itself, 
are intrinsically nothing more than the physiolo- 
gical states more or less turned from their natural 
standard ; while therapeutics is only the method 
of turning them back again. For great and wise 
purposes, the properties of life are rendered mu- 
table, and as one cause or another, and according 
to its virtues, may make its impressions upon irri- 
tability or sensibility, so will it be felt, and cor- 
responding effects will follow. The progress of 
structural development from the beginning of 
life, especially such as marks the different eras, 
both in animals and plants, as, for example, from 
the embryo and seed to the evolution of the struc- 
ture, and again remarkably at the age of puberty, 
is partly due to modifications which the organic 
properties undergo ; since all the processes of life 



ORGANIC LIFE. 203 

are carried on by these properties acting through 
the medium of organization.* The same pro- 
perties are rendered more transiently mutable 
to carry out the act of gestation and lactation 
in animals, and fructification in plants. In the 
former cases, the changes are abundantly mani- 
fest ; and then the powers of all other parts must 
be so constituted as to adapt themselves to those 
transient modifications through which gestation 
and lactation are accomplished. And since, there- 
fore, the organic properties are rendered mutable 
for those great natural ends, and susceptible of 
various influences for the purposes of life, they 
are unavoidably but contingently liable to changes 
of a morbid nature when certain unnatural causes 
may happen to exert their effects upon them, and 
those morbid changes are even analogous to those 
of gestation and lactation. So, also, for the same 
reason, when other causes operate, they are liable 
to other artificial changes ; and it is found from 
observation that, among these latter causes, there 
are many that will produce such changes as will 
enable the morbid properties to take on their natu- 
ral tendency towards a state of health. If, there- 



* See Institutes of Medicine, (Age and Sex,) p. 373—383, 
p. 393. 



204 ORGANIC LIFE. 

fore, it be miasma which operates upon them, fe- 
ver may ensue, and then, perhaps, a cathartic, or 
an emetic, by a different impression, will place 
nature in the way of passing again to her ordina- 
ry state. All the changes, too, which constitute 
the different forms of disease, are attended by such 
modifications of irritability and sensibility, that 
the subjects of such changes are very differently 
affected by physical agents than in the condi- 
tion of health.* All this, too, will be according 
to the combined circumstances which make up 
the nature of the change ; and it is the rinding 
out of these circumstances in every case of dis- 
ease, and at all stages of its progress, and adapt- 
ing our means of cure in conformity with them, 
which form the greatest difficulties in practical 
medicine. 

Now, gentlemen, this mutability of the proper- 
ties of life is at the very foundation of the heal- 
ing art. When they are driven from their natu- 
ral standard to a morbid state, it is more or less 
their tendency to return to their healthy condi- 
tion. This tendency may be often greatly pro- 
moted by art : but in many instances, as in the self- 
limited diseases, it so far transcends all artificial 

* See Author's Institutes, &c, § 137—160. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 205 

impressions, that, in a general sense, it will admit 
of little or no interference. This great law, there- 
fore, is at the very basis of medicine. With- 
out it, remedial agents would be powerless; the 
knife of the surgeon, and his caustics and poul- 
tices, would have had no existence. It is the sole 
dependence of plants and of the brute creation. 
All animated nature, indeed, would utterly per- 
ish without it. Galen in one line expresses beau- 
tifully the whole extent of the doctrine. " Na- 
tura malum sentiens gestitat magnopere me- 
derV' Nature cast down desires greatly to be 
assisted. 

The general tendency, of which I have now 
spoken, in the properties of life to return from 
their morbid to their natural state, whether spon- 
taneously or brought about by art, has been long 
known as the Vis Medicatrix Naturm — the recu- 
perative power of Nature. It is a great organic 
provision, which is often through misapprehen- 
sion, and not seldom ironically, represented as 
a principle of intelligence ; while it is nothing 
more than a natural law impressed upon the con- 
stitution of all organic nature. Hence it is that 
all right-thinking physicians have regarded and 
designated Medicine as the tl Handmaid of Na- 
ture." You perceive, therefore, gentlemen, that 
10 



206 ORGANIC LIFE. 

this also is a very good name, so only you agree 
to understand alike its proper import. None un- 
derstood it better, or has expressed it better, than 
the father of Medicine. " Natura deficient e" he 
says, "qnicquam cbtinet medica ars, peril ceger" 
If Nature come not to the aid of the medical art, 
the sick man dies. And Celsus to the same ef- 
fect : " Natura repugnant e, nihil proficit me- 
dicinal If Nature do not co-operate^ medicine 
is useless.* Or, as the poet has it, 

" When Nature cannot work, th' effect of art is void." 



* It is from the want of a proper understanding of the recuper- 
ative efforts of Nature under circumstances of disease, and too 
often from no understanding of the subject, that so many physi- 
cians rely altogether upon art for the cure of diseases ; while, in 
truth, art can only place the moibid states in the way of curing 
themselves. Nature does all the rest ; and therefore it is that the 
best practice often consists in doing nothing more than keeping 
all obstacles out of the way of Nature. All this is conspicuously 
seen in diseases that have a certain allotted course and duration, 
as smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, mumps, &c. This principle, 
indeed, is at the foundation of the success of homoeopathy and 
animal magnetism, more or less aided by confidence and hope. 
The work of cure, in this popular practice, is left to the spontane- 
ous efforts of Nature, while the mind is agreeably entertained and 
encouraged by the powerless and inoffensive doses that are ad- 
ministered under the disguise of remedies, or by an appeal alone 
to the imagination. 

Were it not, therefore, for the natural tendency implanted in 
the constitution of the properties of life to return from morbid to 



ORGANIC LIFE. 207 

I have said that physiology is so completely at 
the foundation of all the changes which befall 
the living being, that the same great principle 

their natural states, there could never be a recovery from disease. 
But something more than this natural recuperative tendency is 
necessary in grave diseases. There must be either help from art 
or other help from Nature. But it is only a small proportion of 
mankind, and but few of the brute creation, that can have the be- 
nefit of art ; and, from the fallacies of human judgment, art itself is 
often imbecile. Nature has therefore instituted a great variety of 
processes for her own protection and preservation, though they all 
depend upon a few simple laws, or, more comprehensively, what 
I have denominated the law of adaptation. We see the princi- 
ple first exhibited in the various permanent provisions for self-de- 
fence, such as thorns, horns, the galvanism of certain animals, the 
poison of serpents, of insects, &c. (See page 1D3 ) The most 
obvious step in the chain of analogies is the variety of provisions 
for perpetuating the species ; such as relate to animal and vegeta- 
ble reproduction, the wings and burrs of seeds for their dispersion, 
&c. Then comes another class for the preservation of every in- 
dividual ; such as the various contrivances for procuring food, &c; 
and here, too, should be included the food itself, the air, &c. 
Now, with all these provisions for the maintenance of life in a 
state of health, it would be absurd to suppose that a fundamental 
principle has not been implanted in the properties of life for their 
direct preservation, when they may become deranged by various 
causes. That this is so, is a matter of constant observation ; and 
this observation of the spontaneous subsidence of disease, or as 
the most violent poisons of the materia medica may contribute to 
its removal by establishing changes that are more favorable to the 
recuperative process than such as are brought about by the ordi- 
nary causes of disease, enforce still more the conviction that it 
would have been the greatest possible defect in the general plan 



208 ORGANIC LIFE. 

stretches from disease to those differences among 
mankind which are known as the temperaments 3 
and even to the changes which are effected in 



of preservation had morbid conditions been left alone to the con- 
tingencies of art. One of the most obvious subordinate means is 
the privation of appetite in a vast proportion of diseases, that the 
individual may avoid his habitual food. This provision is strong- 
ly pronounced in all animals ; and that it does not obtain equally 
in man is owing to the artificial nature of his habits. 

As to the direct means which Nature employs for the removal 
of disease beyond the recuperative tendency appertaining to the 
properties of life, striking illustrations occur in the effusions of 
lymph, of serum, of mucus and of blood, which are set up in in- 
flammatory diseases ; of bile, perspiration, &c, in fevers, &c, 
and which contribute greatly towards their removal. In all dis- 
eases, during their increase or decline, there is a constant succes- 
sion of pathological conditions, however nearly allied. When 
the changes are of a favorable nature, the vital properties and 
functions will ultimately attain that modification which results in 
a free production of the natural fluids, or effusions of serum, or of 
lymph, or pus, or blood. As soon as any of these products take 
place, they operate as depletory remedies, and hasten the favora- 
ble changes in which they originate, and especially so as the effu- 
sions proceed directly from the small vessels which are the instru- 
ments of disease. As these effusions, too, are Nature's ultimate 
effort at relief, we thus derive from her a valuable guide for our 
treatment of inflammations and fevers. 

The tendency, therefore, of the vital conditions, when diseased, 
to return to a healthy state, and, in the progress of those favora- 
ble changes, to bring on results which hasten their complete resto- 
ration, is one of the most remarkable exemplifications of Design ; 
since, without it, the whole human race, the entire animal king- 
dom, would become extinct. Our whole materia medica, as I 



ORGANIC LIFE. 209 

plants by cultivation, by changes of climate, &c., 
and in animals by analogous influences. And 
here I have thought that I cannot do better than 



have endeavored to show, extensively, in the Institutes of Medi- 
cine, does but establish new pathological conditions ; but its seve- 
ral agents alter the morbid states in such ways as enable the 
properties of life to obey more readily their natural recuperative 
effort. The only difference, therefore, between the morbid states 
induced by the ordinary causes of disease, and the changes which 
arise from the action of remedial agents, is, that in one case the 
alteration is more profoundly and permanently made, while in the 
other it is of such a nature as to subside spontaneously. 

The established laws of living beings are so full of provisions 
for the maintenance of the great ends of Creation, that we find 
Nature instituting morbid processes for the removal of evils of a 
very different nature from disease, whilst in the end she accom- 
plishes the cure of the disease which she had instituted. Wounds, 
for instance, are an injury which Nature endeavors to repair, and 
they are, therefore, made the cause of inflammation, that the 
edges of the wound may be united by an effusion of lymph, and 
this effusion becomes a part of the natural cure of the inflamma- 
tion. Again, a hard, irritating eschar, or a mortified part, is an 
evil to the adjacent tissues, and through a common law of the 
properties of life, it institutes an inflammatory action by which 
either is thrown off through the suppurative process, while the 
formation of pus is the natural cure. A bullet, or other solid sub- 
stance, penetrating the organization, as the muscle of a limb, is 
an offending cause, and the irritation it produces brings about that 
pathological state of the vital conditions which constitutes inflam- 
mation. This form of disease, therefore, when thus produced, is 
a salutary process of Nature to get rid of the offending cause, and 
it must not be disturbed unless the offending cause be artificially 
removed. The steps in the process are very curious. Suppura- 



210 



ORGANIC LIFE. 



to illustrate this subject by a brief analysis of the 
temperaments of mankind ; and for this purpose 
I will be indebted to a page which I have alrea- 



tion takes place on all sides of the foreign object, attended by ul- 
ceration, and absorption of the living parts which intervene be- 
tween the foreign substance and the surface of the body. But, 
on all other sides, a little beyond the foreign body, coagulable 
lymph, instead of pus, is deposited, by which the cellular tissue 
is agglutinated, and the purulent matter thus prevented from dif- 
fusing itself through the adjacent parts. Finally the foreign body 
reaches the surface, and is expelled, and Nature then institutes 
the eschar by which the opening is healed. In the mean time 
the morbid process is made, progressively, the means of its own 
cure by the effusion of pus and lymph. 

But, another curious expedient of Nature, and by which she 
endeavors to avoid the necessity of a morbid process for her own 
relief, consists in the frequent production of cysts or sacs around 
the foreign body, especially if it happen to be smooth and free 
from irritating angles, like bullets. In these cases a slight in- 
flammation is excited, and an effusion of coagulable lymph, in- 
stead of pus, takes place and results in the cyst or sac ; and this 
new formation, being but imperfectly endowed with vital proper- 
ties, is not offended by the presence of the foreign body. The 
little inflammation originally produced is overcome by the effusion. 

No wonder, therefore, that when physiology was less under- 
stood, Van Helmont, Stahl, and others, should have supposed that 
the healthy and morbid actions are under the guidance of an in- 
telligent Agent. 

I have endeavored to illustrate, in a summary manner, in the 
Institutes of Medicine, (page 679 — 681,) the whole philosophy 
that is ever concerned in the production and cure of diseases, in 
an example supplied by the Seton. See, also, my Materia Medi~ 
ca and Therapeutics, -p. 174 — 181. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 211 

dy placed before the world, bat too recently, how- 
ever, to have engaged your attention. 

The temperaments may be regarded as embra- 
cing the innate as well as acquired peculiarities 
of constitution ; for although the latter depend 
upon causes that are relative alone to the in- 
dividual, the former or innate constitution has 
been brought about, at some anterior generation, 
by the physical agencies of life. This is the 
true temperament, and belongs to masses of man- 
kind. 

Idiosyncrasy is only a variety of temperament 
and constitution, and like those, therefore, de- 
pends upon some peculiar modification of the 
properties of life, especially irritability ; but only 
so in relation to a very few particular agents. 
It is peculiar to individuals, rather rare, and may 
be hereditary or acquired. This peculiarity is 
not unfrequently the cause of the favorable or 
deleterious effects of certain remedial agents, of 
certain kinds of food, &c. We see the important 
principle illustrated every day, every hour. Here 
is a subject who is salivated by the external ap- 
plication of a few grains of mercurial ointment, 
and in whom various diseases may be speedily 
extinguished by this simple use of the remedy. 
But here is another, in whom the internal ad- 



212 ORGANIC LIFE. 

ministration of an ounce of calomel may produce 
no constitutional result, and make no impression 
upon disease. Or, it may be in another case of 
extreme susceptibility to the action of mercury, 
that the agent always displays the effects of a 
profound poison, aggravating fever and other af- 
fections, or, in the absence of disease, greatly de- 
ranging all the functions of life. Most men are 
poisoned by the slightest contact with the Rhus 
vernix ;■ but now and then an individual handles 
it with impunity. Muscles and some other ani- 
mals are always poisonous when eaten by some 
people, though generally good articles of food. 

Constitution comprehends all the peculiarities 
of the individual : the temperament, idiosyncra- 
sy, conditions relative to age, sex, habits, &c. 
It is, therefore, liable to many variations at all 
periods of life. The prevailing characteristics of 
each of the elements may remain, but yet so mo- 
dified, that what is known as constitution may 
be " broken down."" 

The same principle is concerned throughout, 
whether in respect to constitution, temperament, 
or idiosyncrasy. It is the same as prevails habi- 
tually in respect to the naturally modified irrita- 
bility of different organs in man, and in all ani- 
mals, and in plants ; that which renders the pro- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 213 

duct of one organ innoxious to some parts, but 
morbific to all other parts, — that which renders 
the eye susceptible to the undulations of light, 
the ear to the undulations of air; and so on. 
The principle, and its everlasting, unchanging 
laws, are everywhere, in all that relates to orga- 
nic beings, whether in respect to the system in its 
abstract condition, or as relative to external agen- 
cies. It is a great and wonderful principle, a 
perpetual study for the philosopher, ever preg- 
nant of variety, ever illustrative of the peculiar 
character of the properties of life, of their natural 
modifications, of their instability, and forever sup- 
plying fresh sources of interpretation of the laws 
which the properties and actions of life obey. 

It is evident, therefore, that temperament, con- 
stitution and idiosyncrasy are constituted by cer- 
tain acquired or transmitted conditions of the vi- 
tal properties, which form a part of the natural or 
habitual state of each individual, and from which 
arise various degrees and kinds in the suscepti- 
bilities to the action of physical agents, and cer- 
tain peculiarities, also, in the material condition 
and conformation of parts, especially the exter- 
nal. By studying these sensible peculiarities, as 
well as the phenomena of life in their natural 
and morbid conditions, we infer the peculiarities 
10* 



214 ORGANIC LIFE. 

of the natural vital conditions in different indi- 
viduals, or their natural constitution and tem- 
perament, or any more remarkable idiosyncrasy. 
They reach, also, to the mind, which is apt to 
bear certain relative peculiarities to those of the 
organic states. 

In the farther consideration of this subject, 
I shall regard those peculiarities of constitution 
which are mostly of a determinate character, and 
include them under the general denomination of 
temperament. 

The physiological differences between temper- 
ament, idiosyncrasy, and constitution, are neither 
great, nor of much practical importance. In- 
deed, so allied are they in principle, that a com- 
mon philosophy determines the remedial treat- 
ment, which is always more or less modified by 
temperament. Each should be considered along 
with the modifying influence of habits, climate, 
&c; 

Temperament and constitution do not depend, 
as supposed by some writers, upon the special 
development of particular organs ; though this is 
true of some of the vicissitudes of age. The 
former have their foundation in the system at 
large, and are apt to be transmitted by one or by 
both parents ; or, the transmitted peculiarities 



ORGANIC LIFE. 215 

may come from a remote ancestor, and not from 
the immediate progenitor, This last peculiarity 
is analogous to one of the characteristics of the 
scrofulous diathesis, where it passes over one 
generation and reappears in the third. 

It appears, therefore, that temperament, whe- 
ther innate or acquired, is due to the slow opera- 
tion of causes upon the vital constitution, just as 
it is in respect to the habitual use of tobacco, of 
opium, &c., or as it respects certain morbific 
causes. 

In the latter case, the modifications are more 
or less transitory; but may be so ingrafted as to 
be transmitted, for a time, like the permanent 
temperaments, from parent to child, as seen of 
some diseases, such as rheumatism and gout, or 
of predispositions to diseases of a transient na- 
ture, as in smallpox, or even ordinary fever. 
Coming to hereditary diseases of a permanent 
nature, as scrofula, we run from the transitory 
phenomena of vital habit, which respects the 
use of tobacco, opium, &c, by an intimate anal- 
ogy, into the permanent temperaments : and from 
these we are conducted by the same philosophy, 
which respects the operation of physical agents 
in modifying the properties of life, to those more 
remarkable peculiarities which spring up in an- 



216 ORGANIC LIFE. 

imals from domestication, and in plants from 
changes of climate and soil. 

It is scarcely probable that differences in tem- 
perament have, often, any appreciable effect on 
the elementary composition. Differences, how- 
ever, obtain in respect to structure, as seen in the 
general form, the proportions of the limbs, the 
features, <fcc, while more remarkable correspond- 
ing analogies are witnessed in the herbaceous 
and arborescent habits of the same plant, as it 
may be subject to the influences of a tropical or 
cold climate, as the Ricinus communis. 

Great differences arise not only in respect to 
the influences of the same remedial agents, from 
the mere circumstances of temperament, but mor- 
bific causes may be equally various in their ope- 
ration. The same causes may be very apt to 
affect one temperament, while they will rarely 
have an effect on another temperament. 

The temppraments, as designated by the an- 
cients and retained by the moderns, are divided 
into the Sanguine, the Melancholic, the Choleric, 
and the Phlegmatic. The artificial habits of the 
moderns have added a fifth, or the Nervous. 

It is not usual to find all the attributes of each 
temperament united, while some of the whole 
may be blended in the same individual. Never- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 217 

theless, the characteristics of one or the other 
generally predominate. 

Temperament is most distinctly pronounced at 
adult age. 

1. The Sanguine Temperament. Unlike the 
other temperaments, the characteristics of the san- 
guine are perpetuated from infancy, and perhaps, 
therefore, may be considered the most natural. 
The skin remains soft and delicate ; the limbs 
rounded and full ; the superficial veins, unlike 
those of infancy, large, conspicuous, and blue, 
especially about the head and temple ; the com- 
plexion fair, florid and animated ; the eyes large 
and blue ; the hair light, or red, or of intermedi- 
ate hues. 

Sensibility and irritability are strongly pro- 
nounced ; the great development of the latter 
giving the principal determination to the san- 
guine temperament. The blood, in consequence, 
stimulates the heart to more frequent, high, and 
regular action, maintains the capillaries in a live- 
ly and plethoric state, and thus determines the 
redness and softness of the skin. Other vital 
stimuli, also, operate with greater intensity than 
in other temperaments. For the same reason, 
the secretions and excretions are rapid and copi- 
ous, and are little liable to vacillation in the ordi- 



218 ORGANIC LIFE. 

nary conditions of health. All things else move 
on in a corresponding manner ; the whole assem- 
blage of which beautifully illustrates the true 
philosophy of life. 

The great development of sensibility contri- 
butes, also, its considerable part to this tempera- 
ment. The senses are ever on the alert ; and 
here, as with irritability, external objects make 
their impressions with great effect and rapidity. 
Perception is rapid, reflection quick, imagination 
lively, memory prompt. The succession of ideas 
is too rapid for comparison, and hence the judg- 
ment is infirm, unless associated with genius ; 
when it is distinguished for eccentricities. This 
is exemplified in the poet Byron, and in the war- 
rior, the Marshal, Duke of Richelieu, — "that man 
so fortunate and brave in arms, light and incon- 
stant, to the end of his long and brilliant career." 

Inconstancy and levity are the great moral 
attributes of the sanguine. Variety and enjoy- 
ment never satiate. Devoted to sensual gratifi- 
cations, they are in love with all female beauty, 
and are inconstant to a mistress, if not to a wife ; 
yet are they honorable in all things else. 

The sanguine is eminently generous or prodi- 
gal, and the end of gain is the purchase of plea- 
sure. Quick in anger, he is soon cool, or he is 



ORGANIC LIFE. 219 

impelled to hasty decisions that are soon regretted. 
A challenge to a duel would be gladly abandoned, 
did not a sense of pride urge him on to the com- 
bat. Revenge and envy have no hold upon this 
constitution. 

It is evident, therefore, that the prevailing dis- 
eases of the sanguine temperament are inflamma- 
tory ; that the organs sympathize readily and 
greatly with each other, and that the sympathetic 
affections are disproportionately greater than the 
primary affections. Infancy always partakes of 
this temperament ; but if it be truly constitu- 
tional, the infant is liable to extraordinary demon- 
strations of its fundamental nature. The irrita- 
tion of a tooth, for example, is more apt to pro- 
duce convulsions, and intestinal derangements 
still more so, or to lay the foundation of cerebral 
diseases, &c. Anger being quick and vehement, 
here displays its instant effect in developing in- 
flammations and hemorrhages. But love is in- 
stable, and as envy, grief, and jealousy torture 
not the mind, so do they not the body. 

As external causes, whether natural or morbific, 
make their impressions rapidly and profoundly up- 
on the sanguine temperament, and its diseases be- 
ing active and violent, remedial agents should be 
prompt and decisive, as in infancy ; but here, also, 



220 ORGANIC LIFE. 

for the reasons which are relative to the first pe- 
riod of life, remedies are also profound and speedy 
in their operation. And since the prevailing dis- 
ease of this temperament is inflammation, blood- 
letting is the principal means of cure, and will 
require but little co-operation from other agents. 
If early applied, and carried to its proper extent, 
it will nearly extinguish the most violent inflam- 
mations during its first application. The test of 
this extent will be also more exactly determined 
in this, than in other temperaments, by the sub- 
sidence of symptoms during the progress of the 
operation. It is in this temperament, also, that 
the philosophy of the vital influences of loss of 
blood is most evidently shown. 

2. The Melancholic Temperament. The mel- 
ancholic temperament has certain points of resem- 
blance to the sanguine, though they are strongly 
contradistinguished. The general external aspect 
of the sanguine is cheerful ; that of the melancho- 
lic, dry, stern, or gloomy, and excites no liveliness 
in others, though it command respect, and even 
admiration. The solids predominate in the mel- 
ancholic ; the capillaries show less blood, though 
the veins are large and more prominent, but less 
transparent than in the sanguine ; and unlike the 
latter, the skin is darkish, or inclining to yellow, 



ORGANIC LIFE. 221 

thick, coarse, and hard to the lancet. The blood 
flows more freely from the sanguine when the 
skin is pricked ; and this exemplifies the state of 
the capillary circulation at large. The same prin- 
ciple obtains, therefore, in the pulmonary circula- 
tion, and hence in part, the blood is darker in the 
melancholic than in the sanguine. The eyes of 
the former are darker and less prominent than in 
the latter ; and the hair is dark, coarse, or stiff, 
eyebrows large, black, and often projecting; the 
muscles and tendons, like the superficial veins, 
stand out, from the absence of that cutaneous fat 
which gives rotundity to the body of the sanguine. 

It is easily seen, therefore, that irritability and 
sensibility are comparatively dull in the melan- 
cholic. External objects do not make the strong 
and rapid impression upon the senses as in the 
sanguine : and from the obtuseness of irritability, 
the action of the heart is slower, the capillary 
blood-vessels are less charged with the vital fluid, 
the secretions and excretions less and more slowly 
performed. 

The melancholic temperament is the principal 
abode of genius : embracing a large proportion of 
those great men who have unfolded the laws of 
nature, or have made the highest advances in the 
arts, or have astonished the world with deeds in 



222 ORGANIC LIFE* 

arms, or with the achievements of the statesman, 
or the orator, or the painter, or the poet. Here 
is witnessed the highest intellectual renown at 
the very dawn of manhood ; and here it is that 
we often meet with genius struggling with those 
adversities which arrest the ambition of other tem- 
peraments. The melancholic is forever indomi- 
table ; rising in determination as obstacles rise be- 
fore him. Inflexible in purpose, the passions are 
disciplined to urge on an arduous enterprise, or, 
if allowed to become impetuous, it is to accom- 
plish the decisions of the understanding. With 
equal facility he concentrates his mind upon ab- 
stract inquiries, or at the next moment sends it 
abroad over the widest theatre of its operations. 
He is bold and brave, never fearing death, nor 
wantonly incurring danger. He moves steadily 
forward, though he does not move, until he has 
explored the path before him. His imagination, 
therefore, is of the highest order, being disci- 
plined by the sterner faculties. It is such an 
imagination as is always an element of genius ; 
such as contemplates the realities of life and the 
truths of Revelation. He is thoughtful, grave, or 
sad, but may tune his mind to great elevation, 
and great sublimity and enthusiasm, and often 
soars on poetic wings through the regions of hea- 



ORGANIC LIFE. 223 

ven. The "sanguine on the contrary delights in 
the romance of fiction. 

Honor holds its empire in this temperament, 
however it may be wanting in human sympa- 
thies. If pledged to a good or bad action, it is 
fulfilled. The melancholic is generally fervent 
but dignified in his attachments, or looks with 
indifference or with scorn upon humanity. A 
few, like Tiberius, are fearful, perfidious, suspi- 
cious, and cruel ; and others, like Nero or Richard, 
insensible to danger, and ever ready for the work 
of death. 

As with sensibility and irritability in their nat- 
ural aspects, so it is in their relation to morbific 
and medical agents. The coincidence is univer- 
sal. The former are slow in establishing morbid 
changes, many are inoperative which readily light 
up the flame of disease in other temperaments ; 
and the passions are subdued by the melancholic 
into mere agents of the understanding. But 
when morbific causes have made their impres- 
sion, the dullness of irritability and mobility ex- 
plains why disease is apt to be obstinate, and why 
remedial agents operate with less rapidity than in 
the sanguine. The vital properties and functions 
being slowly susceptible of morbid changes, they 
are slowly altered from their morbid states. 



224 



ORGANIC LIFE. 



It is easily inferred that the diseases of the 
melancholic are mostly of the digestive organs 
and that their removal is tedious. It is also mani- 
fest that these, and other affections, are slow in 
developing diseases of other parts, and that the 
brain and the mind must be most likely to sym- 
pathetic disturbances. Hence it is that hypo- 
chondriaism and insanity are apt to supervene in 
the melancholic temperament. 

Cathartics are demanded more by the melan- 
cholic than by any other temperament ; though 
their exigencies have a special relation to the dis- 
orders of the digestive functions. Bloodletting, 
also, is often necessary to reach these chronic 
maladies ; and although its delay in the grave 
forms of inflammation be less hazardous than 
with the sanguine, its necessity is as great, and 
its extent and frequency of repetition are greater. 
It is here, too, that the greatest demand is made 
upon the materia medica for auxiliary means. 

3. The Choleric Temperament. — The chole- 
ric is intermediate between the sanguine and 
melancholic temperaments; and although it forms 
the sanguineo-melancholic, it possesses charac- 
teristics which give it an individuality. The 
skin has greater fullness of the capillaries than in 
the melancholic, and therefore greater softness 



ORGANIC LIFE. 225 

and warmth, but less than in the sanguine. The 
pulse is intermediate in fullness and frequency. 
The secretions and excretions moderate and uni- 
form. The healthy functions performed with 
regularity and ease. The choleric is tenacious 
of his own rights, but less disposed to infringe 
upon the rights of others than the melancholic, 
while he has less generosity than the sanguine. 
The higher faculties of the mind correspond with 
the other characteristics of this temperament, be- 
ing generally distinguished for their moderation. 

Irritability and sensibility holding an interme- 
diate degree between those of the sanguine and 
melancholic, external agents operate with a rela- 
tive effect and rapidity ; so that the organic func- 
tions move on without frequent or profound inter- 
ruptions, and diseases yield to a more compound 
treatment, though less readily than to the simpler 
means required by the sanguine, but more speed- 
ily than in the melancholic. 

4. The Phlegmatic, or Lymphatic Tempera- 
ment. — The phlegmatic is characterized by sloth- 
fulness of mind, and by a simpler display of vege- 
tative life than any other temperament. The 
flesh is soft, the countenance pale, the hair deli- 
cate, and the fat amounts to an incumbrance. 
The limbs are rounded, feeble, and without ex- 
pression. 



226 ORGANIC LIFE. 

The veins are small, and lie deep. The pulse 
is small, feeble, and soft ; arteries small, and the 
capillaries deficient in blood. Irritability is dull. 
Sensibility is obtuse, and perception weak, which 
greatly circumscribes the senses as an avenue to 
the mind ; while 

" Fat holds ideas by the legs and wings." 

But, with all the intellectual dullness and bodily 
indolence, which distinguish this temperament, it 
is obstinate, fearful, suspicious, and avaricious. 

The organic functions of the phlegmatic are 
easily liable to interruption, though morbific 
causes, unless intense in their nature, make their 
impressions feebly. The mind, and its predomi- 
nant passions, have, of course, but little agency in 
the production of its diseases. Disturbances, how- 
ever, seem to arise from the mere inertia of the 
vital powers ; and when morbific causes make 
strong impressions, the properties of life often go 
down, at once, to near the verge of extinction. 
So, also, do active remedial agents operate with a 
relative effect. Emetics are scarcely admissible ; 
violent cathartics prostrate excessively ; and any 
unnecessary extent of bloodletting breaks down 
the whole energies of the body. This tempera- 
ment therefore requires great moderation of treat- 
ment. 



ORGANIC LIFE. 227 

5. The Nervous Temperament. — The nervous 
temperament displayed itself feebly among the 
ancients, but has been brought to a high maturi- 
ty by the progress of civilization. It is the only 
temperament where the primary causes may be 
traced, which consist mainly of such as are atten- 
dant on indolence and sedentary pursuits. It in- 
volves alike, therefore, the rich and the poor, the 
sensual devotees of fashion and the plodding shoe- 
maker, the laborious student and the readers of 
romance. 

The nervous temperament is founded upon the 
sanguine, or the sanguineo-melancholic, and is 
either transmitted, or springs up originally in the 
individual. It is therefore the most artificial of 
all the temperaments, and is susceptible, individu- 
ally, of great improvement. It is shown exter- 
nally by. a general aspect of feebleness, a spare 
body, and small, soft muscles, which are incapa- 
ble of much exertion. 

An unusual predominance of sympathy is the 
leading characteristic. Irritability is also strong- 
ly pronounced. Hence, slight disturbances, even 
of unimportant parts, give rise to greatly dispro- 
portionate sympathies in the more important or- 
gans ; and these secondary results will be still 
more intense if the primary disease be seated in 



228 ORGANIC LIFE. 

any important organ. The functions are con- 
stantly subject to irregularities, especially those 
of the abdominal viscera. If the subject be ad- 
dicted to the causes of this temperament, he is 
rarely free from indigestion, and an attendant 
train of other evils, according to the nature of 
his indulgences or pursuits. 

Diseases, however, are not as violent as with 
the sanguine, nor as profound as with the melan- 
cholic. The mind is irritable, but the passions 
not violent, though they readily disturb the or- 
ganic functions. Such as display themselves de- 
pend much upon the habits and occupation of 
the individual. 

Remedial agents operate with power, the same 
coincidences existing between their effects and 
those of a morbific nature, as in other tempera- 
ments. Moderate impressions, therefore, made 
upon the alimentary canal, are sensibly felt by 
remote parts ; and in this temperament, particu- 
larly, the peculiar principle upon which leeching 
operates is well illustrated. 

What I have now said, specifically, of the tem- 
peraments, is liable to certain qualifications. 

Different epochs of life appear often to partake 
of a particular temperament ; one subsiding into 
another. The sanguine is most characteristic 



ORGANIC LIFE. 229 

of infancy and childhood ; the melancholic and 
choleric of middle age ; and the phlegmatic of 
old age. 

The several temperaments are also often blend- 
ed more or less with each other, in the same in- 
dividual. When thus combined, they are called 
the sanguineo-melancholic, the sanguineo-phleg- 
matic, &c. 

They are also liable not only to the foregoing 
modifications from age, but from sex, climate, 
habits, education, &c. So great, indeed, is the 
influence of climate, that a change of residence 
(as from a northern to a tropical country) will 
sometimes gradually transmute one temperament 
into another ; and this is particularly true of the 
sanguine, the melancholic and the choleric. 

Accidental influences are sometimes such as to 
generate anomalies, in which it is difficult to re- 
cognize any distinct features of the prevailing 
modifications of temperament, and which may 
disappear with the individual, or be transmitted 
to his descendants. 

All the varieties which I have now stated are 
more or less liable to modifications of a common 
form of disease, and require corresponding vari- 
ations in the details of treatment. They concur 
together, therefore, in forming a part of the difrl- 
11 



230 ORGANIC LIFE. 

culties of medicine, and in demonstrating the 
complete abstraction of organic beings from the 
forces and laws of the inorganic. 

I say, organic beings in their most compre- 
hensive sense. For are not the varieties which 
have sprung from domestication and cultivation, 
among animals and plants, and which are equal- 
ly and more perfectly transmitted than tempera- 
ment, constitution, &c, in relation to man, inte- 
gral parts of a common principle? Exactly the 
same philosophy lies at the foundation of the 
whole, and is another broad field of evidence to 
substantiate the unity of the vital principle, of its 
common laws and functions throughout animated 
nature, and presents the whole in a magnificence 
of grandeur, a harmony and unity of unfathoma- 
ble designs, which forms an unutterable contrast 
with the physical hypotheses of life.* 

* Such as are disposed to see this subject continued by the Au- 
thor in its relation to Age, Sex, Races of Mankind, Climate, and 
Vital Habit, will find the investigation in the Institutes of Medi- 
cine, at pages 363—383 ; 391—400. Death, at page 401—404. 













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